Persephone
by dulce.de.leche.go
Summary: Better to be the right hand of the devil than in his path. Better still to be the consort of Hades than a part of his collection of souls. Ten years after Voldemort has won the war, Hermione reaches a breaking point and shreds the flow of time to change her future. If she can't change the world, she will change her place in it. - Extremely dark Tomione/Volmione. Warnings inside.
1. Author's Note

**Epic McLong Author's Note:**

Here we are again friends, but this time a bit of something new! Well, something new for me anyway.

This is my first trip into the world of the Tom Riddle Jr/Voldemort x Hermione pairing. I have to say that I never gave the couple a second thought until I read several of the stories by **provocative envy**. If you are a Tomione/Volmione fan and you somehow haven't read her works, I highly suggest you give them a go. She also has some of my favorite Dramione stories that, if you're into the Draco x Hermione pairing, should have a look at as well.

All that being said, this is an extremely dark work of fiction. I will have more detail in the warnings section below, but if you don't like AU, dark settings, or dark Hermione, then you need to not read this. Seriously, not joking. Don't like that kinda thing, don't read it. Now, for the huge list of warnings.

**. . . . .**

**WARNINGS: **Dark fic, very, very dark fic. This is NOT a redemption fic in any sense of the idea. If you're reading for a redeemed Tom Riddle/Voldemort or Golden Gryffindor Girl Hermione, you're in the absolute wrong place.

Dark Hermione and Tom Riddle Jr/Lord Voldemort pairing (yes that means snake face Voldemort as well), excessive violence, sexual themes, manipulative and controversial themes, wonky time shit, quasi-crazy Hermione, references to non-con, attempted non-con, and at least one instance of dub-con. The scenes of this nature included in the fic are pretty important to the story so if it bothers you in the least, I suggest again that you not read this.

AU, Voldemort wins scenario, the entire thing pulls from mostly canon events up through DH but there are notable exceptions to make the story go round, you'll be able to tell them from canon because… well, they won't be canon. There is also an extensive use of time turners with blatant disregard for the preservation of timelines. In addition to all of that, there is an assortment of character deaths, some minor, some major including HP canon characters and OC's.

_**Going forward, warnings are no longer posted at the beginning of chapters.**_

Consider yourself warned.

**. . . . .**

While I hope those of you wanting to read will enjoy what I've got laid out here, I really must just say again, if any of the above squicks you out to any degree, it's best if you don't. I don't typically pull punches when I write about bad people so I'm really not just yanking your chain.

If you still read and choose to review with how much you dislike or are uncomfortable with the things warned about… sorry?

All that said (if I've got anyone actually still reading) I hope you enjoy my take on a dark romance between these two.

Standard disclaimers apply - i.e. Harry Potter is not mine, just this story.

And lastly, this story is being beta'd by **Rose Davis** and my friend **evocatrice** who has also been finding my unintentional time paradoxes within my timeline and outline (which is done btw). :)

Many thanks and happy reading.

_-Slik_


	2. Chapter 1 - One of the Monsters (Book I)

**01 - One of the Monsters**

September 2009

_"Crucio!"_

Her back bowed off the ground, limbs bending and twitching awkwardly, and her jaw dropped open in a silent scream. The pain was insurmountable, unbearable, it was utterly _maddening_ \- or it should have been in any case.

The cackles of Hermione's mistress echoed in her ears and while she still bent and writhed and tried to scream, she no longer truly felt the pain. She had stopped _feeling_ anything a long time ago; anything but hatred towards her captors anyway.

This year would mark her thirtieth year on the earth and a little over a decade in captivity. A decade of crucios and yet her mind still hadn't shattered. A decade of suffering and she still wasn't broken. It was a miracle. It was a show of her mental fortitude, her inner strength.

It was a lifetime of complete and total _hell_.

_"CRUCIO!"_ Her spine felt like it was on the edge of snapping, she could feel the grinding of her bones and it set her teeth on edge.

The Battle of Hogwarts was a distant memory – no, the _fall_ – the _FALL_ of Hogwarts was but a faint twinkle of the past.

_**"CRUCIO!"**_ The mental walls she'd built shuddered as another curse ripped through her mind looking for weakness.

Dumbledore had been right about Harry needing to die to destroy the accidental horcrux within him; he'd been all too right actually. There was no clever turn of fate that day when he walked into the woods to meet his end. As hard as they all had wished it to be a lie, he had died that day, well and truly. They'd lasted only minutes in the face of the Dark Lord after that; without him to bolster them all, without that hope he'd carried on his small shoulders, they crumbled in the face of Voldemort's army.

And so began the new world order.

_**"CRUCIOOO!"**_ Bellatrix's giddy voice reverberated through every inch of Hermione's body. The crazy witch's insane tittering flared at a particularly good spasm from the girl writhing in a muddy puddle of the decently manicured backyard. The sound died off, rising and fading again with each of her slave's violent twitches until it was nothing but a low rattling chuckle.

Hermione's mind, her brilliant, magnificent, once treasured mind was the only thing that continued to allow her to function from day to agonizing day. Where Harry had failed in occlumency, she had succeeded. As with everything she set that brilliant mind to do, she succeeded - even if it was with independent study, a prayer, and "field training" - and to that very day she was sure it was the only thing that ultimately kept her going, kept her tethered to this world.

Shutter away the thoughts.

Shutter away the pain.

Shutter away the most valuable pieces of sanity and hide in the dark, away from the crushing storm, and be safe…as safe as she could be without being…

_Dead._

Everyone was dead; if not dead, then imprisoned or enslaved as well. She and a handful of other Muggle-borns – _Mudbloods_, use the right name, silly girl – and Half-Bloods she knew were spared immediate death because of the Dark Lord's twisted love of magical folk.

No unnecessary blood need be spilled, he had said. Harry Potter is dead, we will give fortunate few the opportunity to join our ranks and the rest… are examples.

She didn't need three guesses to know that she was not, in fact, part of that fortunate few.

Gifted to Bellatrix – to stifle the woman's incessant whining, she was sure – Hermione found herself slightly lower on the servant's ladder than the most common House Elf. There were rules of course, with the Dark Lord there were _always_ rules or courtesies or formalities; he was a bit of an odd duck, that one.

Sometimes, Merlin help her, Hermione imagined that the man had to have had the most peculiar, if not perfect, set of manners a young man for his time could have had. That in itself was unlawful; a Mudblood thinking about the Dark Lord, _tut tut_. Bellatrix would be extremely displeased.

Hermione's mouth twitched in a shadow of a smile.

_**"CRUCIO!"**_

In any case, there were rules.

The Dark Lord would stand for no sort of breeding with the less than pure magical servants. Touch, taste, _play_, but no more than that or he advised he would be more than pleased to remind his followers personally that the lines were to remain unsullied for their future to truly succeed. The inner circle hadn't taken such a warning seriously enough until word of Yaxley's unfortunate accident rippled through the right channels and he appeared at their next meeting. That is to say his skin appeared first, then what was left was delivered piece by piece by the most elegant parliament of owls that galleons and sheer unadulterated terror could buy.

It was the only additional warning the Death Eaters had required.

Hermione had eavesdropped on her Master and Mistress' discussion after the meeting and always wondered what had become of that girl.

_Shutter away the thoughts._

She wondered what the Dark Lord did with the girl if he didn't display her death as part of the reminder.

_Shutter away the pain._

She tried not to wonder too much.

_Hide…hide from this world._

In addition to the no breeding rule, the second and final taboo was that the graciously spared servants were not to be killed and tossed aside prematurely. To do so would be an insult to the Dark Lord's generosity and "vision" and also… Yaxley. The magic within their filthy blood was to at least be given its due and allowed to run its full course throughout their enhanced lifeline and contribute to their wonderful new community.

It was bolstering, he'd claimed. Look how far even these pitiful creatures had come, the better, purer future would be leaps and bounds above this round of mutts.

Something about keeping the filth around to keep his lieutenants or whatever the bloody hell they were from becoming too comfortable, too lax. A reminder that they couldn't rest on their magical laurels, they needed to keep striving for power to increase the distance between them and the trash; something like that.

Hermione didn't remember the words exactly, just his eyes, his eyes falling on her in the room of his minions and their gifted trash. Red, blazing eyes. They'd been so interested in her and she'd wanted to shrink in on herself at his inspection but at the time she was still too foolhardy a thing to have the sense to.

Such a contradiction that man, that creature was... he was such a strange thing.

_**"CRUCIO!"**_

Her eyes squeezed shut and she was probably finally screaming now but it was so very hard to tell.

Their – the slaves - magic wasn't left to all of their own devices of course.

She assumed it was the same for all of them, but Hermione knew that her magic was bound by the Lestranges to the point where she could only care for the house and defend her keepers with it if she should ever be so gifted with a wand again. As if things would ever become so dire in Voldemort's perfect new world to allow for THAT.

His rules were funny but in a twisted sort of way, she supposed they made sense. They weren't in place to actually protect her, of course, just her special, albeit filthy blood. They didn't protect her as point of fact seeing as how the Death Eaters were nothing if not inventive with their ways to skirt the rules, but they were there at least. It could have been worse.

Hermione's mouth twitched. She hated to think that, but it _could_ have been worse.

As she lay there in her mud puddle, her mistress having tired of her for the moment, Hermione thought; she wondered.

The rules didn't protect anyone really, but the fact that he'd put them in place at all, well that was a curious thing then wasn't it?

As she lay there, in a pile of her own waste as her body continued to jerk and spasm with aftershocks of the curse, Hermione thought of the Dark Lord.

A part of her, one that existed in this small gap of peace between the cracks in her walls with her sanity starting to bleed out, pondered if there was anything left of the man that had severed himself for immortality and his "vision".

As she lay there with Kipsy the House Elf cradling her head to administer the same bitter draught that she received every day to repair the damage and soothe the spasms for Mistress Bellatrix's next session, Hermione _**thought**_.

_What turns a person to such evil ways?_

_Shutter the thoughts._

Her body seized angrily as it always did, fighting against the potion for several minutes before the tremors finally subsided. She could sense her mistress pacing nearby, imagined she was running her pointed tongue along sneering lips and trailing her fingers across her stomach. She waited, _was waiting_, wanted to send her into spirals of pain as soon as possible.

What had she done again? Oh, that's right, she woke up again today.

_Shutter the pain._

_How much does one have to suffer at the hands of monsters before you plot their demise?_

_Hide… hide from this world._

_When does it happen?_

_What is that defining moment where everything falls away and you understand that to stop them you have to become a monster too?_

_Shutter away, shutter away, shutter away…_

"Enough! AWAY WITH YOU!" Bellatrix barked at the elf who dropped Hermione's head immediately and disappeared with a crack.

Hermione was still, frozen, but not by fear, just simple exhaustion. If her mind was all there, if she was aware of her Mistress' words, she might have found fear, but it was simply too exhausting trying to hang onto the shreds of herself that'd finally began to unravel; so many years, pity it was finally falling apart.

She wasn't cowering properly, she wasn't twitching anymore, she wasn't responding correctly to her Mistress' taunts and jabs and it was leaving the dark witch enraged beyond all reason.

_Shutter away…shutter the thoughts…shutter the—_

A maddened snarl. "Filthy little Mudblood—_**CRUCIO!"**_

_**PAIN.**_

Hermione screamed.

She screamed and she screamed and she screamed.

Her chords bled but there was more, even more, so much _more_, and her back arched more violently than before.

Something cracked, might've been her back, maybe her skull on the ground, a rock, yes perhaps that.

Something.

Something something something.

The walls in her mind shook, they rattled they split. A fine seam appeared, the tiniest little cracks spidered out.

_Shutter shutter shutter shutter-_

_**"CRUCIO!"**_

All those pretty, fortified walls shuddered violently free of their foundation and that _something_ broke free.

A laugh bubbled up from Hermione's chest amongst a slew of other less jovial sounds and she was sure Bellatrix mistook it for insanity by the sound of her own elated cackle. The force behind the witch's curse stopped abruptly and her Mistress must have been bent over with glee by the sound of it – Hermione Granger, finally driven _mad_ – she must have been celebrating.

Hermione laughed harder, muttering under her breath, body twitching in the mud and her Mistress none the wiser for it all.

"Where have you gone to my filthy little Mudblood?" Bellatrix purred and moved with a fluid grace around her little slave.

She sauntered, walking circles around the spasming girl, watching with great amusement as she tried to move her hands, her arms. Bellatrix tittered when Hermione actually managed to jerkily trace her fingers over her own cheeks, seeming more amused at the fact that she was still laughing, still muttering.

"Where where _where_ is your mind now?"

Bellatrix was a foolhardy woman, much like the Dark Lord. Too confident in their abilities, too much ego and too often did they miss things, underestimate the worth, the skill of the fodder that dusted their feet.

_That_ was why she laughed.

The dark witch knelt in a less muddied spot of yard, eager to hear the ramblings of the mad, so pleased that she still had it in herself to drive them there.

"Where have you gone, pet?" she asked again.

"Shutter the pain."

Bellatrix's face contorted in a mask of confusion and anger. _**"What?"**_

Hermione smiled.

And she continued smiling even as she forced her jerking limbs up to grapple the other witch's head by the temples and sink her thumbs fully into the woman's eyes. She pushed and she pushed with a decade's worth of memories fueling the impossible strength behind the move and then she pushed some more, hooking her digits into wet, sticky, gooey things and wriggling them around for more.

Bellatrix screamed in anguish, a sound so raw and so rare that it spread goose bumps all along Hermione's mud soaked flesh. It made her laugh again, this time it sounded much less like the sound of the mad.

The witch thrashed and tried to wrench the girl – no, not a girl anymore – the _woman_ off of her. Bellatrix slammed a fist against her head, tried to cast a spell, but the spell went wide with her panicked aim. She was frantic and unprepared in the face of such a Muggle styled attack and it only intensified Hermione's resolve.

Hermione's body was still trembling and twitching, tremors of the dark curses still more than evident in her body but she held on; she held on because to do anything less was death and she was no longer ready to meet it.

She found herself somehow atop the struggling witch and hummed sweetly with her hoarse voice. "Oh my Bella, how old you've become in these last ten years."

Her wand had been lost in the struggle and Bellatrix was shouting at this strange, this different, this completely Muggle kind of agony.

Hermione fastened the fingers of just one hand into the blind and bloodied holes in her Mistress' face grinning even as the woman beat her fists against her head and shoulders and arms and _everything_ she could reach. She removed the other just long enough to reach for that irritating rock that'd cut up her backside during today's torture.

Dragging the stone's jagged edge along Bellatrix's cheek she smiled a smile that failed to reach her cold chocolate eyes and Hermione placed a chaste kiss to her Mistress' forehead. "Shutter the pain, Mistress… it makes it so very much easier."

_**When is it that you realize that you're already one of the monsters?**_


	3. Chapter 2 - Possession (Book I)

**Trigger Warning:** Dub-con...ish scene that skirts the edge of attempted non-con followed by violent/graphic punishment.

* * *

**02 – Possession**

September 2009

Hermione's arm convulsed slightly as she dusted Rodolphus' favorite curio cabinet. Her muscles were still twitchy and recovering from her earlier punishment for breathing Bellatrix's air, but she had what was left of the restorative draught and it would have to do. There were plusses to knowing the house inside and out, such as knowing where said potions were kept. And now, with the aid of the chest's key lifted from her mistress' still cooling body, she'd taken that along with a few other things that may prove most useful to her current agenda.

She'd been waiting for the last several hours for Rodolphus to come home. Hermione had passed most of that time reading and GODS how she missed it. The witch plucked every piece of literature, every tome she could get her hands on within the Lestranges' library - from _Magick Most Evile_ to _Secrets of the Darkest Art \- _and poured herself into the texts with a voracious fervor until it was time to prepare to greet her Master.

As she dusted the cabinet her eyes danced over the items within and an airy smile curled her lips. He would be home soon, and all her bitter and wistful and impossible thoughts from too many years of being the butcher block for her most unkind keepers would begin to actually take shape. She flexed her fingers, wiggling them within the already slackening bonds around her magic. One more and she'd be free.

A thrill of excitement bubbled in her gut and for the first time since _**EVER**_ she wished the man would just walk through the bloody door already.

"Patience," Hermione reminded herself. "Patience patience patience…" She continued dusting and ran her fingers over the bodice of her tattered dress then down, down where she had Bellatrix's wand tucked neatly into the band of her knickers.

It was the second time in her lifetime that she had her hands on the thing, though this time… _this time_ it was much more accommodating; if she listened closely, she would almost think the thing was humming pleasantly against her skin.

That would be crazy to think, though… She continued dusting.

With her magic still mostly bound and suppressed and with her energies restricted to use for little aside from basic household tasks, she'd ambled about doing the only things she could do: she tidied. Hermione merrily levitated Bellatrix's dead body to her chambers, scourgified herself and the woman's clothes, and went on.

She dusted.

She neatened.

She even fixed herself some buttered toast points.

But mostly she waited.

"Soon," she muttered, eye flicking to a corner of the cabinet then forward again to the spot she was caring for, "soon."

As if on cue, a crack sounded from the foyer and her master's presence moved swiftly through the hall. Hermione felt him approach. She always felt him approach. But this time she simply tilted her head, kept dusting, and smiled to herself.

"Sweetling," Rodolphus' voice hummed from the doorway of his study. He appraised her backside as he always did, enjoying quite thoroughly the way her riotous curls cascaded down her back – he did so love how they brushed her hips and framed her little body. When she didn't turn to face him, instead of growing irritated a sly grin found its way to his features. "Diligent today." He observed the way her body ticked and hedged carefully, eyes darting to the doorway and back. "Is… Mistress home yet?"

Hermione tugged her lip between her teeth to resist a dry chuckle and cast her most sultry look over her shoulder. She knew he would be close, _too close_, the next time she looked. "Mistress is sleeping."

She failed to completely suppress the smirk.

Rodolphus grinned at that and, cocky as the rest of his ilk, thought precisely nothing of his little Mudblood slave's new receptiveness to his routine interests. Mostly, he was having difficulty mustering reasonable caution rather than merely noticing that she was wearing one of his wife's ratty old dresses. It was one he'd gifted to her some time ago for one of his games, and she was already sporting it in apparent anticipation of his return.

Finally, she'd _**finally**_ come to understand her place in the world, and he was quite ready just at the sight of her. She looked like a much younger version of his admittedly crazy wife, devious glint and all, and it had him aching. Maybe it was a gift from Bella – she'd done stranger things than surprise him with a bout of accidental thoughtfulness. She was quite mad, after all.

"How fortuitous for us then, eh pet?"

Hermione's smile widened and she turned fully, presenting him with a lovely view of her cleavage. "I consider myself very fortunate, Master." She brushed the fingertips of her free hand along the concealed bump at her hip, but by the hitch of his breath she surmised he took no notice.

Rodolphus closed quickly and she felt his hands fasten onto her waist. The brush of his beard scratched along the exposed span of shoulder and neck as he buried his nose in her hair. He rumbled lowly against her skin, wasting no time with nipping and tugging at the sensitive flesh until chill bumps had spread over that delicate line of neck.

"Naughty little thing, my Mudblood. I've been thinking about you and that tight little body of yours, _all_ day."

Hermione sneered and her eyes flashed, though he couldn't see it with his head buried in her chest, and she ran through the motions. Her hands smoothed over his arms, lingering on his biceps as she knew he liked, and she felt his own touch creeping lower and lower. She curled her fingers, nails biting and raking up over his shoulders, his neck, into his stringy, oily hair and she grit her teeth against the feel of him.

Hermione's lips were at his ear and she curved her voice into a panting lilt even as the fury lit her eyes with golden flecks. "I've been waiting for you for hours, Master."

He groaned and shivered bodily. Bella's session today must have knocked something loose in the girl. She had exhibited some strange behaviors after his wife's more animated playtimes on occasion but they never lasted long - much to his disappointment. He knew he'd have to capitalize on it quickly.

Just once, just once, he wanted to hear the girl's screams come from ecstasy and not pain.

"I've waited so long for this…"

Bella had not truly touched him since before the Dark Lord had restored them all, freed them from their prison; she was far too smitten with the creature to hardly ever give him the time of day anymore. It had been so long, too long, and this girl… Sometimes she just looked so much like his little Bella. He had fixed his Mudblood like the bitch she was so he could play, and just once he had to - _**just once **_\- before she snapped out of whatever haze his wife had left her in.

Rodolphus was hypnotized by her breathing, shallow and rapid, and he slammed her against the hardwood of one of his displays. He heard her gasp and hardly anything else as he hefted her onto the edge of the furniture so she was perched precariously with him nestled between her legs. His thick, grubby hands wrenched up the skirt of her dress to her hips and he smoothed calloused hands across the skin of her thighs.

"So have I, Master," she spoke in a tone cold as ice.

He froze when one of his hands hit the crooked wood at the band at her hip. He raised his head from her breasts with a look of utter confusion plastered on his face and met the rabid eyes of a woman he'd never seen before.

One of her hands had wrapped around the handle of one of Bellatrix's cursed blades, one she had borrowed from her Mistress' collection and had nestled just behind her amongst Rodolphus' knick knacks. The other swept between them to run over his chest and clench in the folds of his shirt and Hermione's teeth flashed from behind a most feral snarl.

"I've been waiting for this for a very, _**very**_ long time."

He let out a shout, made to move for his wand, but a different kind of sound gurgled out from a new opening in his neck. The dagger, wicked and warped and magicked in the darkest of ways, had slid through his neck like a hot blade through butter. It pierced from back to front until the hilt butted up against his spine and the tip poked through his violently bobbing Adam's apple.

Rodolphus sputtered, his weight slumping onto hers as black lines spread and crept out from the fresh wound. She pushed off from the display and shoved him further with her momentum. His hands scrabbled at her clothes, ripping at the barely-there dress with swiftly fading strength until, finally, he was falling.

Hermione watched him as he fell; she watched every single seize and spasm that wracked through his body from the spreading curse. She watched his slowing heart beat beat beat until his cursed blood had all but emptied itself from his body through those new holes in his neck. Hermione snuck a hand beneath her skirts and retrieved the dark ebony wand from her hip, simply _watching_ how his gaze paled and glossed. With every passing second she felt the bindings on her magic loosen and may have whet her lips with anticipation.

The man's eyes bulged, his lips flapped and his fingers twitched toward her ankles.

Her magic fluttered and beat against its prison like a startled bird.

The second Rodolphus brushed her skin she reared back and landed a heavy kick to his face that had her toes aching and pounding in pain. She did it again.

Her hair frizzed and the air around her came to life as more and more of those invisible cords dropped away. Hermione's grip tightened on the wand and it practically purred in her hand, humming in tune with the energy that was crawling to the surface and stretching its legs.

"Do you remember our first time, _Master_?" she mocked.

A sickly looking foam the color of spit and blood and darkness was bubbling out of his mouth. His fingers flexed for her again, but Hermione stepped away from his spasming reach. He was there on his belly, flopping a bit like a fish on occasion, wriggling in the dark, cursed, muddied puddle of blood.

"I promised that I'd kill you if you touched me again."

The wand was singing to her. It was the sweetest song she had ever dreamed of and she tilted her head back to listen to every note. That stifling pressure shrugged off her shoulders and the static of binding magic lifted; suddenly the air felt cleaner, clearer, crisper. She took a deep breath. Then another. Then once more and her laughter filled the study and the halls surrounding it with a gaiety unheard of in the esteemed house of Lestrange.

And then she was crying the _best_ kind of tears.

The smile on her face stretched ear to ear and the words shuddered out of her in a shaky laugh. The last piece of her prison fell away and her magic burst through her limbs with the force of a rushing tide. "You should have listened."

In a sudden flash of movement, Hermione hissed a word and with a jerk of her wand arm Rodolphus' body went flying face first into the door of his curio cabinet. The blood ward on it released as soon as he came within inches of it and his face was immediately driven through the glass with a fantastic spray of shards. That snarl back on her lips, she wrenched her arm back and sent his corpse soaring from the room, ripping the cabinet door free of its hinges and exposing Rodolphus Lestrange's most valuable possessions to her at long last.

Hermione approached immediately, eyes never leaving the object that had caught her attention since her arrival. With a wide, catlike grin she reached in. Carefully, oh so carefully, she plucked the piece from its perch and admired the slowly turning rings and drips of sand shifting within the glass.

It was Rodolphus' most prized reward for service under the Dark Lord. It was the last of its kind, having miraculously escaped the infinity loop of destruction in the Department of Mysteries. It was the only chance she had left.

Hermione stroked the glinting golden Time-Turner reverently.

It was time to fix her world.


	4. Chapter 3 - In the Family (Book I)

**03 – In the Family**

June 1926

Hermione sat on the patio of the small wizarding patisserie, sipping her tea while pouring through the pages of another of the Lestranges' borrowed tomes – spelled to appear much less dangerous in public, of course.

It had been several months since she began perusing this year, feeling out the locals, finding the right one; it was finally time. Not a moment too soon, either. It was a bit like going on holiday, sniffing around wizarding London in decades past, but she could certainly do with a change of clothing style. The fashion trends didn't seem to change as frequently in the magical world as they did the Muggle, and the slightly more formal dress to this decade was stiff and uncomfortable. She would be most happy once she was able to return to other tasks that would take her back out of the general public's eye. It would be a while yet, though.

Stuck for the moment perusing the 20's and she didn't even get to wear _one_ obnoxiously gaudy string of pearls in her role; a pity, that.

She flipped another page and poked idly at her fruit tart while she waited. She wasn't sure why people ate these disgustingly sweet things more frequently than "on occasion" unless it was to keep people like her parents in business. Nearly as soon as it crossed her mind, Hermione grimaced and she quickly pushed the thought down into a deep, dark box to never ever think of ever again. _Ever._

She took a bite of her tart and it tasted like ash.

She sighed.

She turned _another_ page.

The bell to the café jingled and Hermione's eyes shifted up from the pages of her book.

"Bye Ruth!" a voice called from inside the café.

The witch exiting in her quaint serving uniform with an apron tossed over her arm turned back, smiled, and waved. "Bye Anna! See you tomorrow!"

Hermione's eyes dropped back down to the text on the pages in front of her as the witch passed, intent on finishing this last section before finally marking it and gathering her things. By the time she collected her books back into a worn leather satchel that held far more than the looks of it suggested, Ruth was a long way down the street. She smirked to herself as she shoved the small box of baked goods into her bag that she was saving for consumption along with a nice bubble bath and another book later, and started off in the direction of the girl.

_Ruth Swanson._

_Lone daughter to a widower father, Edgar Swanson, who'd taken ill recently and officially crowned her inheritor to a reasonably sized family estate. He was the last of his kin alive at this point and she, little Ruthie, was such a sweet, loving, doting daddy's girl. She, unfortunately, had extremely limited access to the family vaults, and before dear daddy had slipped into his rather questionable mental state he'd neglected to remedy that fact._

_One of the troubles with wizarding society_, Hermione mused, _was a severe lack of precautionary legal safeties to ensure the few Pureblood citizens that didn't ACTUALLY want to off their relatives were dealt with properly in such a situation._

Hermione hummed to herself, walking the path she'd scoped out over the past several weeks, watching this girl and researching her story, her plight.

There she was, poor Ruthie, with exorbitant amounts of money within reach to give daddy the absolute best care, but completely unable touch it. If she were like any other witch of her position in such a situation, she would've happily let her father slip away – the sooner the better – so she could tumble naked through the massive stores of Galleons. Instead, she was caring for him as best she could, working all sorts of hours at the new patisserie that opened just down the road to pay for independent Mediwitch care in the home. She even went so far as selling the family's House Elf to the highest bidder and secure as many months of service for her dearest daddy as she could with the money.

The fact that this little witch, bred to marry and breed some more with hardly a day's worth of work experience under her belt prior, took the initiative to get a job doing whatever she could to care for her loved one… well, an independent, motivated, overly caring bleeding heart that Ruthie was; she was a girl after Hermione's own.

It's why she was _perfect_.

Ruth was a curious witch to watch, seeing as how she always opted to take the walk home instead of the Floo or Apparating. Granted, it wasn't all that far a trip to her home, but it was just an odd thing to see from the witches of her station and her age. Hermione gave the woman ample time to take her daily stroll home, hanging around a nearby park before finally following and approaching the deceptively humble front door and rapping her knuckles against it several loud times.

There was a bit of shuffling, some muffled exclamations about shoes being where they ought not to be, but finally the door cracked open to reveal the almost-twenty-something witch. Her dark eyes peered around the edge, wide, somewhat wary, but not overtly shuttered or rude. "Hello. Can I help you, Miss?"

Hermione brightened at the generous address – _Miss?_ How she enjoyed this girl already. Bellatrix's torture had taken more than ten years of her life and she was quite aware that, while not as worn as she _could_ be, she most certainly did not look to be a "Miss" anymore.

Smiling pleasantly at Ruth, Hermione produced a copy of The Daily Prophet and held it up at eye level. "Yes, please. I am looking to meet with Miss Swanson. I've come to inquire about a position posted in the Prophet for a housekeeper."

Ruth's eyes widened more, this time with a huge, obvious smile. Funny, that, her smile; Hermione was under the impression that all rich Pureblooded folk tended to learn very early on how to mask such obvious emotions… perhaps it was just the less than savory kind.

"Yes!" she exclaimed, "Oh, yes, thank you!" Ruth opened the door the rest of the way and ushered Hermione in. "Oh, my goodness, I took out that ad months ago. You're the first that's actually responded to it. I know the wages are very modest but they're all that I can offer, I mean. . ."

Hermione allowed herself to be taken in, quirking an eyebrow in amusement at the girl's frazzled yet excited state. She continued pouring her little heart out and giving her so many handholds with which she could manipulate her later, and the silly chit hadn't even asked Hermione for her name.

_Definitely must just be the less than savory kind,_ Hermione thought to herself.

There was a brief moment where she almost felt bad for the girl, obviously clueless as to how a business exchange as sensitive as this was supposed to go, but it passed quickly. Hermione had learned quickly that the gullible and the weak didn't thrive in this world and, unfortunately for little Ruthie that modicum compassion that she once held for such feeble minded individuals had all but fizzled out.

Once dragged through the foyer, the home opened out into a surprisingly huge space, certainly much larger than the Lestranges' home. They reached what Hermione would have identified as a sitting room only there were several loads of half-done laundry piled on one end of a disgustingly expensive looking chaise. An assortment of books and miscellany was piled in the few chairs that were available.

Hermione's other eyebrow joined the first in a slow climb up her forehead.

Ruth hefted a stack of tomes off a rigid looking wingback chair and onto the floor then motioned for Hermione to sit while she herself took up a seat on the edge of the nearby coffee table. The young witch leaned forward immediately, hands clasped in her lap but the look on her face was bright and eager as though Christmas dinner had just been placed.

When it became clear the girl was awaiting some other exchange to happen, Hermione blinked and then cleared her throat, taking a tiny speck of pity on her. "Would you… like to see my credentials? Or, I could tell you about them and my experience…" She blinked again. "…or my name?"

Ruth flushed at that. "Oh! Oh…yes, I'm sorry, so sorry." She cleared her own throat and sat more properly, pulling on a mask of cool indifference that, had Hermione not witnessed the complete and utter lack of craftiness the girl had moments ago, would have put her back in the running for a proper "less than savory Pureblood". "So, Miss. . ."

Hermione's lips twitched towards a smirk. "Pruitt. Jean Pruitt."

She nodded stoically. "Miss Pruitt. Have you any prior experience with managing an estate?"

"Yes." She thought about her years in servitude as well as the final moments that brought her there that day and smiled a _very_ pleasant smile. "Quite a bit, actually."

"Oh?" Ruth feigned, feigning interest – poorly. "Do tell me a bit about it, then."

"Of course. I just recently moved to the area, _very _recently, still looking for a permanent home, you see, but before that I managed house for an older couple for a bit over a decade. They were quite heavily into the local politics and were out-" Hermione ran her tongue over her teeth, looking for a word, then smiled again with every single one of said teeth. "-_campaigning_ often. It was a relatively quiet setting all things considered and I was charged with keeping things tidy, people fed, all the usual sorts of tasks."

Ruth was leaning forward again, a wistful smile creeping onto her face. "Oh _wonderful._ Were there any children?" It was an idle question.

"No." The word snapped out quickly, startling the girl. Hermione's hand drifted towards her abdomen, but she clenched her fist and forced it back into her lap instead. "No," she amended more pleasantly, then added, "But I do also have experience babysitting. Not for my last family, but the one prior."

"Oh that's just lovely!" The girl swooned at the mention of babies.

Hermione's eye twitched.

"How long did you do that for?"

A smirk. "Seven years."

Ruth gave her a watery smile, her pitiful Pureblood mask having slipped away again. "You sound wonderful."

…_truly?_ The hair on the back of her neck prickled. _Could the girl really be that daft? This is __**far**__ too easy._

"Thank you," Hermione replied modestly, blushing perfectly.

The witch was grinning and she was beginning to look relieved, though just when her shoulders started to relax, a flicker of a grimace passed over her features. Ruth seemed to think about something a long while, as though mulling over the next question like she didn't want to ask. Once it was out, Hermione understood why.

"Is there anything that you would like to ask me about the position, Miss Pruitt?"

Hermione eyed her carefully, figuring how to steer her. "I would like to have a clear list of duties you would be expecting performed daily, if I may."

"Of course." Ruth nodded and sat back some, now tapping her fingertips together in her lap. "Cleaning, of course, the whole house. Laundry," she paused to cringe at the unsightly piles she knew were towering behind her before continuing, "There would be some minor cooking duties as well."

When Hermione acknowledged the list thus far with a not-wholly-surprised 'hmm', Ruth took it as a good sign – better than the absolute zero other interviews she'd been able to conduct – and listed off a few more tasks. The older witch appeared to be seriously considering the position and when it looked like she may have been about to accept, Ruth blurted something out in a rush that made the woman pause.

"Pardon?"

"I-I said," Ruth hesitated, "You wouldn't have to worry about my father because he… he has his own separate care."

"Your _father?" _Hermione made an appropriately surprised sort of face with just the right amount of indignant shock that _such _a monumental detail was left out so purposefully, tempered with the correct level of propriety toward her would be employer.

"Yes. Father is, well, he is ill. He requires round the clock care now to make sure he stays safe and-" Her breath hitched. "-out of things. He's just got a spot of trouble telling things apart nowadays is all… but…"

"Ah. Well, I thank you for your time today, Miss Swanson, but in light of this new information, I'm afraid I must decline this position. I'm in no way qualified to be of any assistance to a relative with that particular kind of ailment. I do wish you luck in your search for help, however."

Ruth's eyes went round as saucers when Hermione made to leave and she latched onto the woman's wrist with a surprisingly strong and not-so-surprisingly desperate, grip. "Wait! Please don't! As I've said, you wouldn't need to care for him. He has a Mediwitch that does all that. She keeps to herself mostly, she keeps daddy from getting into things or hurting himself and really, you'd barely even see them! Please Miss Pruitt! Please, don't go! I'll increase the proffered wages – double them, triple if you need! Please! You're the first that's even bothered to interview!"

Hermione frowned at the hand on her wrist and her jaw tightened at the way the girl shamelessly pleaded. She'd known the exact situation of the household before approaching her, certainly, but Ruth's words about her father kicked that deep, dark spot in her chest where she kept trying to store the remnants of her own parents and _their_ outcome after the war had ended.

The fleeting glimpse of sympathy behind Hermione's eyes was only partially fabricated.

With a long, exasperated sigh, followed by a kind, tight smile, Hermione plucked the hand from her wrist and held it in both of her own. "Miss Swanson-"

"Please call me Ruth," she rushed out as though that would help.

"That would be wholly inappropriate."

"_Please_, Miss Pruitt, I can't, I just can't do it all anymore. I'm hardly ever home now and when I'm here…when he…he's—I need to be able to spend these days with him." Her chin wobbled, hand gripping the older witch as though she were the last handhold of a sheer cliff face to keep her from plummeting. Ruth's voice was softer, calmer when she spoke again, "It won't be long. Not much longer…I promise."

Hermione's hand reached out of its own accord to tuck wisps of hair behind her ear and she looked long and hard into those wide, brown eyes. They shimmered with unshed tears and the full range of her emotions were laid out so plainly, the entire world could see. Hermione remembered a time in her life where she was sure she'd turned looks like that on many a man and woman in her pursuit for fairness, for justice, for freedom; she wondered what on earth her gaze looked like now to others.

"Ruth."

The witch looked so hopeful.

_It was disgusting._

Hermione cupped Ruth's cheek. "I would be a very evil witch indeed if I allowed you to pour all of your wages into me just for the opportunity to spend with your father. Would you be opposed to my staying here during the length of my assignment instead? It would free me from paying for the awful room I've had to acquire since my arrival."

"So you'll do it?" Ruth gasped excitedly, a few of those tears escaping just at the jostling of her head snapping up so quickly.

"_Yes_, child." She rolled her eyes, though Ruthie was far too busy fastening herself onto her frame and proceeding to squeeze the life out of her in gratitude to notice.

"Oh thank you! Thank you thank you Miss Pruitt! Thank you so much!"

Carefully, so carefully, Hermione took Ruth by the shoulders and peeled her away to look into her eyes. The expression she gave the little witch was sweet and friendly and positively charming. "Say nothing of it, dear girl. Let's just call it a deal, okay?"

The grin that split Ruth's features was positively huge, the girl was beaming with thanks. "Of course. It's ABSOLUTELY a deal!"

Hermione returned Ruth's expression with an equally pleasant one. "Marvelous."

_Foolish, trusting, __**idiot**__ girl._

Hermione's smile widened.

**. . . . .**

Later that evening, when Hermione was in her soon to be vacated home away from home, submerged up to her chin in sudsy, adorable bubbles while relaxing in a gaudy claw footed tub, she sighed dramatically.

Hermione popped another chocolate truffle in her mouth and stared hard at the blank sheets of parchment levitating in front of her as she'd been doing for the last hour. Her brow furrowed in concentration while she mulled over the final, and possibly MOST important, decision she had to make.

Hermione absently reached into her floating box of treats, frowning when she realized that she'd eaten all of her macaroons.

"Bugger."

She distracted herself from the work long enough to peek in the box, a light scowl on her face, and as soon as she did she brightened. Hermione's lips quirked up in a great deal of amusement as she plucked her last two confections free; adorable and tiny, a comical marzipan version of a witch and a wizard stared innocently at her from either hand.

"Positively brilliant."

Humming a satisfied hum, Hermione set the sugary witch back down and bit the entire head off the wizard, sinking back down into her bubbles. She took up her wand, flicked her wrist at the parchment, and sent the thing flying to the room's other occupant.

"Sign it," she said firmly. "Make it official. Put it in your records tomorrow, exactly as I've ordered."

The Ministry worker turned his head, eyes blank and a glossy silver, to watch the papers flutter to his desk. Dutifully and drone-like, he dipped his quill and scribbled a signature on the bottom corner of The Ministry's official Certificate of Birth and intoned, "It is done, Mistress."

Hermione spent a dedicated number of minutes on cleaning the remnants of her sweet treat from her fingers with her lips and tongue before sinking back into the bubbles.

The quiet stretched in the so posh room with nothing but Hermione and her Ministry puppet's breathing to fill the air. She turned to him, a pleased smile dancing on her lips when she saw him perched on the edge of his chair, looking in her direction with that utter lack of free will floating like a film across his eyes; he was just waiting for her to tell him to jump.

"What do you think, Mister Shepherd?"

"Whatever you wish me to, Mistress."

Smirking, she rested her head on the rim of the tub then stretched out. "Say it. Say it aloud, I want to hear it. Read the name."

Mister Shepherd's silver eyes shifted to the certificate. "Persephone Callaghan."

"_Persephone,"_ she purred. "Perfect. Absolutely perfect."


	5. Chapter 4 - Message in a Bottle (Book I)

**04 – Message in a Bottle**

June 1926

Hermione dusted the Swanson library with casual ease, one hand working a feather duster in a habitual Muggle fashion and the other tracing over the spines of the books before her – _deja vu_. The titles, for the most part, were about what she'd expected to find in the 1920s home of a classically Pureblooded family.

Texts about etiquette, about blood purity, even quaint little books about finding proper mates in the wild, wild world of wizarding London to ensure the maximum amount of efficient and optimal reproduction without breeding oneself into extinction-all of them littered the shelves. Ruth's library was, however, sorely lacking texts about the Dark Arts. Hermione had been so accustomed to seeing the most wicked of tomes day in and day out that the lack of them around her made the place seem even more odd than it already was.

_It simply cannot be __**this**__ easy,_ Hermione frowned to herself.

She summoned a step stool to begin work on the top shelf, bracing herself against the bookcase when a distinct _click_ sounded from where one of her hands rested. She raised an eyebrow at the spot but her attention was quickly diverted to the way a significantly less dusty portion of the top shelf was suddenly moving. The entire section rose into the ceiling to reveal a deep, dark cubby housing more than a handful of novels stacked on their sides, one on top of another.

_Of course there are secret compartments, Hermione, of course there are._

The witch scoffed at her initial oversight and produced her wand. She waved the ebony wood at the stack of books and when her diagnostic spell came back clean, she reached in and extracted a stack of them. She almost laughed outright as she perused _those_ titles as well.

"Oh Ruthie…you really _are_ perfect, my darling girl."

_This Side of Paradise__, __Ulysses__, __The Painted Veil__ \- daddy would be most displeased if he knew you had so many of these, Ruthie._

Hermione pondered how the clueless witch had managed to obtain the Muggle publications, particularly the American ones, but sifted through a few more. Satisfied with her inspection, she replaced them, found the little dimple in the moulding she'd touched before, and watched them be hidden away once again.

Faced with a new conundrum, the woman hopped off the stool and flopped into one of the more comfortable chairs in the library. Well, she couldn't just dispose of the girl _now_, it would be far too much of a waste. Some might deign to call her mad, others "evil" – certainly, people were entitled to their opinions, no matter how wrong they were – but the one thing she certainly wasn't was wasteful.

Hermione had mulled over most of the details by the time Ruth returned home from the café, chopping vegetables in the kitchen when Ruth emerged.

"Good evening, Miss Pruitt!" Ruth said with her characteristic energy and that bright, wide smile affixed to her face. "How are—"

"_Imperio_," Hermione had paused to send the half-hearted curse over her shoulder and gingerly set her wand back down. "Not while I'm chopping, love."

"Yes, Miss, I apologize."

"Sit."

Ruth did.

"Good girl."

She smiled at the praise.

"We're going to discuss some things tonight, Ruthie – may I call you Ruthie?"

"Of course, Miss. As you please."

"Excellent. We're going to discuss some things tonight, Ruthie, that will work out quite well for the both of us. You won't remember a bit of it for quite some time, of course, but I would very much like to get it handled as soon as possible. First and foremost, however, I need you to go get cleaned up, visit with your father, and don't bother me until I've called you for dinner. Is that understood?"

"Yes, Miss."

"Excellent." Hermione mumbled something under her breath and returned to her half chopped bunch of vegetables. When she spoke again, it was with such casual ease, "That sounds like an abysmal sort of day, dear, why don't you go have yourself a nice bath? Supper won't be ready for a while yet."

Ruth jerked in her seat, eyes blinking wildly as though she'd just come awake after falling asleep in public. A hand went up to massage her temple and she grimaced at the sudden headache that had manifested. "S-sorry… Miss Pruitt, what were we…"

"You were telling me about your day." Hermione looked up and gave her a sudden, worried look. "Are you feeling alright, Miss Swanson?"

"_Ruthie," _she corrected suddenly, still rubbing, "And…yes. I'm alright. A bath…I think, I think that sounds lovely." Ruth provided her with a strained smile that looked more like a grimace. "Excuse me please."

"Of course, Ruthie." Hermione watched the girl rise shakily to her feet and wobble out of the kitchen.

She returned to her dinner preparation with a pleased look on her face.

July 1926

Hermione was setting the last couple of dishes of food onto the small, much more intimate table that Ruthie insisted they eat at every day. It was, after all, just Ruth, the Mediwitch Patrice Langelier, Edgar, and herself. Ruth would push every evening for Hermione to sit with them and every evening she politely declined, choosing to take her meals in the study after the family had eaten instead. While she did this, Ruth would bugger off to tuck in her father and leave her to her own devices to take notes as well as rework some of her calculations for her next plotted time jump.

Most evenings were nothing to write home about, some were a bit more exciting than others with Mister Swanson trying to clothe himself in his food rather than consume it, but then there were nights such as this one… nights where Hermione's patience were _severely_ tested.

"Daddy… daddy, please, just let me—"

"NO!" Edgar roared suddenly, slapping away his daughter's helping hands. "Do not touch me! You foul little piece of filth."

Ruth choked back an inarticulate noise and inhaled deeply in an attempt to soothe her quickly fraying nerves. "Daddy," she said again, "I just want to help. You've had an accident is all. Allow me to help—"

"Accident," Mister Swanson hissed, "the only _accident_ that has occurred in this room is _you_. You, you, you…if not for YOU, your mother would be alive. If not for YOU—" And he began to wail, covering his ears and rocking in his seat.

Hermione's jaw clenched and she saw the girl, sitting stock straight, barely keeping her sobs in check. "Ruthie…"

"I-it's okay," Ruth said with a watery smile, "he doesn't mean it. He doesn't know what he's saying."

"Of course he doesn't mean it, child," old Patrice finally piped up in an annoyed tone, smacking at Mister Swanson with a damp rag in an attempt to clean him up. He was only slightly more used to this old maid doing such a thing and resisted less. She added with a dismissive laugh, "He doesn't even remember who you actually are, how can he know what he's saying?"

The sob Ruth had been choking back wrenched itself free and she fled from the room. Hermione could hear the frame wracking cries for only a moment before they were cut off abruptly by a silencing spell.

Patrice finished cleaning off Edgar for the most part and turned to Hermione with a bit of an amused chuckle. "Silly girl. He hasn't shown any _real_ recognition towards her in months. It's a sad sort of thing, don't you think? I suppose I shouldn't complain, gets the bills paid in any case."

Hermione's eyes narrowed at the woman's offhanded shrug and she found herself walking, ever so slowly, round the table to the spot she occupied. "Yes Patrice…it's so inanely ridiculous and sad to be upset over one's parent forgetting who they are. I mean…" She paused, hovering at the woman's side at an inappropriately close distance, close enough for the Mediwitch to straighten and look at her strangely. "…who _does_ that, anyway?"

Patrice's lip tilted in the beginnings of a sneer. "Oh come off it." What little pretenses she kept in place to pretend she was some sort of caring Healer dropped. "You can see it as plainly as I can. He worsens every day. The girl is throwing her money away on a lost cause."

"That, I do not believe, is an opinion you should be so willing to express – particularly to your employer, Patrice." Hermione was standing chest to chest with the woman, staring at her with a faintly pleasant smile. "I believe you are being paid to care for the man, so here's an idea – how about you _**care for the man**__?"_

The older witch didn't even bother to hide her scoff as she looked down her nose at Hermione as so many witches and wizards had before her. "And you're being paid to clean house. So, how about we both stick to our specialties?"

_Clean house and stick to our specialties? _A slow, wide smile lifted the edges of her mouth and Hermione nodded. "Of course. You are _quite_ right."

In a flash, Patrice's face was slammed into the table top, her cheek pressing into the wood and Hermione's wand dug hard into the other woman's temple. She hissed a short series of spells that had the area silenced, the woman pinned, and was sending shocking bursts of energy through her that ignited their muffled space with her screams.

Hermione leaned down and hovered near the witch's ear. "I require a bit more time here, Patrice, and a bit more time with Ruthie. As I see it, you are the most likely culprit to throw a spanner in the works, so here's what we're to do: you will care for the man appropriately until his end of days. You will refrain from making any additional disparaging remarks about the state of his mental health to his daughter. And, most importantly, you will do so while keeping this conversation to yourself."

Patrice cracked open her eyes, pushing past the waves of pain washing over her and mouthed something improper.

Sliding some dishes around, Hermione cleared a space for her to slide into next to Patrice. She sat on the table, feet dangling, and caught Edgar's eyes who was watching with dull amusement and an airy grin stretching his features – Hermione grinned back.

"I could obliviate you, dear. I could make you as daft as Mister Swanson here, or worse, leave you rolling in your own shite and eating it all up afterwards." Hermione ended the shocks pulsing throughout the other woman's frame and rested her wand hand over Patrice's stomach. "I would rather that you know, however, that I have become somewhat of an expert in the ways of torturing someone without ever leaving as much as a blemish behind. I am well versed in ways to scar more than just your flesh and still keep you professionally functional." Still sharing a jovial look with Mister Swanson, she shrugged. "I would also rather you remember precisely how you will be punished if you step a foot out of line. Keep in mind, also, that I keep you for convenience, but I am in no way above obtaining a replacement if you displease me. In fact, it would be quite easy for _me_ to find someone to replace you after your unprofessional disappearance from this home. Someone who would actually do the job that they're being paid a disgusting amount of money to do. I want you to think about that all now, alright?"

The words were barely out when Hermione clenched her wand tightly where it sat against Patrice's abdomen and sent another spell through the woman that had her feeling like someone was taking a serrated scoop to her insides inch by excruciating inch. The woman was but an oyster being shucked under the penetrating pulses of Hermione's magic.

Edgar clapped and laughed at the way his Mediwitch screamed in agony all the way until she passed out. He even went about tossing some of his mashed potatoes at the woman to celebrate.

Hermione smiled at Mister Swanson and extended a hand to him. "Come now, sir, let us find Ruthie while Madame Langelier has a nap."

He took it and followed obediently while dissolving into curious mutterings about _Mudblood filth _that Hermione graciously ignored – for the time being, anyway.

September 1926

With no shortage of magical coercion, Hermione arranged her stay as housekeeper for the Swanson family only through the rest of Mister Swanson's days. The vaults would be open to the girl after his death and she would be able to fire that horrendous Mediwitch, rehire a House Elf or several, and she would be fine; Hermione assured herself the girl would be perfectly _**fine.**_

It was with this understanding that the end of Jean Pruitt's contract came as no surprise during the late days of September with the passing of Ruthie's father.

Mister Swanson's health had been steadily declining, even – Hermione noted with amusement – with Madame Langelier's redoubled efforts to keep him in as good a state as possible. She was nibbling on a piece of meatloaf – a new recipe she'd been experimenting with the past few days – and preparing her newest set of calculations when Ruth burst into the study that fateful night.

Hermione understood in an instant what had finally happened if by no other explanation than Ruthie's splotchy, tear stricken face, and rumpled clothing. She dutifully came to her feet and opened her arms. The girl wasted no time in launching herself at her housekeeper, loosing the most pathetic, shoulder shuddering sobs Hermione had ever heard, and dragging them both to the carpet in her dismay.

Hermione's hands alternated between rubbing soothing circles on Ruth's back and stroking her fingers through the girl's dark locks. "Shh…everything will be alright, Ruthie." Patrice appeared in the doorway, hands fidgeting, eyes wide and frightened looking at Hermione as though she were expecting to be struck down in that very moment. Hermione pressed a kiss to the girl's head and rested her cheek there, after. "Everything will be just fine."

**. . . . .**

Hermione stayed long enough for Mister Swanson's body to be removed and prepared for the funeral due to happen in the next few days. She waited and witnessed the Ministry idiots come to the girl's home to go over the man's Last Will and Testament with his still grief stricken daughter – Mister Shepherd had been in attendance with some paperwork to sign, he looked at Hermione oddly in the foyer, but moved on. She waited and she stayed _just_ long enough to be sure that the vaults and the property was properly signed over to little Ruthie and then she obliviated them all.

She took any memory, any inkling of the fact that Jean Pruitt ever existed in this time or any other. She scrubbed every bitty bitty bit of their brains of all traces of the conveniently placed and perfect little housekeeper she was from Ruth, Patrice, and those same Ministry fools sitting in the tea room.

Hermione slung her leather satchel with its nearly endless space over a shoulder and cast one final look over her shoulder to the witches and wizards in the room. Her eyes settled on her ex-employer and she gave a small nod. "See you soon, Ruthie."

And with that, she left.

July 1997

"Miss Robertson," the man said with clear exasperation, "are you telling me you _left_ them in the vault?"

"Y-yes, sir." The woman hunched in on herself meekly, diverting her eyes from the hard stare of the documents specialist.

"After I explicitly asked that you bring them up for the Minister?"

She shrank back further, voice barely a whisper. "Yes, sir."

He plucked his glasses from his face and rubbed the bridge of his nose as though he were trying _very_ hard not to throttle her. "Well," he began tightly and through grit teeth, "go GET them! And be quick about it! The Minister has to present them to those sodding children within the hour!"

Robertson jumped and nodded, bowing her way out of her superior's office. "Yes sir! Right away sir! So sorry Mister Shepherd! Of course!"

The woman tore down the hall to the temporary holding vaults with as much speed as was possible in her unflattering business heels. She was muttering to herself, angry. "Stupid, stupid, _stupid._ I _knew_ I'd come down here for a reason. Sodding hell, I'll be lucky if I've got a job after this-"

Her voice trailed off after she'd opened the vault to see, not just the assortment of items waiting to be taken to the Minister, but a woman, short in stature with a long mane of curls, clad in a simple, smart looking set of robes that resembled her own.

"Ah, welcome back." Hermione smiled. "My sincerest of apologies for that earlier, still needed to prepare a few things, you see."

"Who the—" Robertson's words were cut short again with a spell that jerked her into the vault and had her tossed like a ragdoll into one of the walls. Her head cracked hard against the stone and she was out in an instant.

Hermione flicked her wrist at the door to shut it, lighting up the inside with a ring of blue flames that clung to the sconces oddly and produced no smoke. She returned her attention to the book she'd been doting over in the clerk's absence to finish removing the wards the old coot had attached to their pages. It had taken a touch longer than she'd expected it to, but the extra moment alone worked out just fine. Hermione finally had the thing primed and ready. In place of the protective spells once on the book, she had interwoven intricate levels of dark magic . All it needed now was the proverbial cherry on top.

Turning to the unconscious woman in the corner, she frowned at the blood trickling down one of Robertson's shoulders. "I'd hoped my first horcrux might be a _bit_ more meaningful but-" She shrugged. "-waste not, want not." With a steady arm, Hermione pointed her wand at the woman and uttered a bland, "_Avada kedavra._"

**. . . . .**

The door to Gregory Shepherd's office opened and in stepped his useless assistant. He looked up from his seat with a sneer, so irritated at her lateness that he failed to notice the much more easy set to her shoulders, the saunter in her step, that disconcerting darkness in her eyes. Most of all, he failed to see the way in which she approached him with the wand drawn at her side and the small satchel of belongings under her other arm.

"It's about bloody time!"

Miss Robertson smirked, peeked behind her at the closed door and whispered some words that had the room secured in seconds. With a bounce to her step, she approached the desk and set the bag down severely between them.

Mister Shepherd jerked back and exclaimed at her ineptitude in handling delicate items. He was well into what appeared to be a common practice of berating his assistant when the woman snapped her wand forward and pressed it to his throat. His eyes went round, his back stiffened and he finally paid enough attention to see the disguise melting away, a full head of boisterous dark curls springing to life in place of the other woman's limp blonde locks.

Hermione tilted her head to one side with a small hum. "You look _very_ much like your grandfather. He was much more polite." It was all she said before she'd whipped her wand again and bespelled the man. She'd hefted herself onto the large mahogany desk and was going through the lines of Dumbledore's will, double and triple checking it had been written precisely as she recalled it to be all those years ago.

Once she was finally satisfied, Hermione nodded towards the satchel. "Touch only the wrappings," she said sternly, "the Minister too. Tell him what you need to in order to ensure these directions are followed. Hermione Granger should be the first to touch these pages."

The younger, less polite, Mister Shepherd nodded, reaching for the bag. "Yes."

Hermione clucked her tongue and slapped the back of his hand with her wand. "Yes _what_?"

He looked puzzled for a brief moment before that glossy-eyed face understood, his head bowed. "Yes, Mistress."

"There you are," she purred and scooted off the desk. "Remember, Mister Shepherd, there is never an excuse for poor manners."

"Yes, Mistress."

"Brilliant. Off with you then."

April 1998

Hermione sat on a large rock, blinking up from her book on occasion to eye the whitewashed walls of the small cottage in the distance. The light breeze and peaceful sound of the sea nearby was just as soothing as she remembered. It was probably the twentieth time she looked up that she finally saw the cluster of figures appear in a tumble with a loud crack. The four of them collapsed in a heap on the nearby beach and she could hear the frantic sobs from there. Hermione turned her attention to the cottage once more and, as predicted, she saw the shapes of Bill and Fleur Weasley emerge in a frantic panic with the pale blonde head of Luna Lovegood joining them shortly after in a hurried hobble.

Stretching languidly on her rock, Hermione breathed deeply of the salty sea air and packed her things away again.

It was finally – _FINALLY_ – time.

**. . . . .**

It had been several days since her younger, post-torture, post-mutilated self arrived at the cottage with her bumbling cohorts. There was something decidedly disturbing about watching a different version of _yourself_ unconscious and being dragged along by a gaggle of morons who barely knew the tip of their wands from their arseholes without help – without _your_ help.

The sun had set a long time ago and Hermione was patiently sitting atop her rock, legs pulled up against her chest with her chin resting on her knees. She shut her eyes and listened to the calming ebb and flow of the waves until the sound of crunching grass caused her to crack open her lids.

The sound of the water slowed to a noise akin to that of a labored set of dying breaths. The air around them stiffened, it had begun grinding to a halt as though time itself was stuttering.

Hermione grinned at her younger self. "I look well." The full phase of the moon lit her seventeen year old face and even under that lighting, she could easily see the deep bags beneath her eyes. Judging by those and the fact that the girl – she, that _she_ – was even standing before… herself, she surmised the spells had more than effective. Hermione the elder shrugged. "I look _better_, anyway."

The Younger made a haughty noise and shifted the book – _The Tales of Beedle the Bard_ – from one arm to the other. "Your quips are a waste of energy."

Pushing off the rock, Hermione sighed. "I really was an utter killjoy, wasn't I?" The older witch dusted some sand from her skirts and started walking a slow circle around herself. "You read it?"

"Every day," the Younger replied, not turning with the other, only catching the woman's eye whenever she passed in front of her forward vision. "As you knew I would. I am thoroughly saturated with your magic and your memories."

Hermione tittered, entirely too amused by interacting with herself. "Wonderful."

She finally ceased her circling, stopping in front of the girl. The witch admired the dark magic swirling in the Younger's chocolate orbs, holding her under a deeper and more powerful kind of possession than a simple imperius could ever hope to accomplish. Hermione reached out to touch her own young cheek and the air around them dried out, stagnated, _shuddered_ angrily when their skin met – _time was not nearly as amused_.

Hermione laughed and yanked her hand back and the air resumed its slightly less irate pulsing. "_Brilliant!"_

"If you're quite finished-," the Younger intoned tiredly under Hermione's scrutiny.

Hermione snorted and began extracting the glittering Time-Turner from its spot beneath her bodice. "Fine, fine. I know it's a traumatic time in our lives – life – right now, but you _really_ should lighten up some," Hermione purred while she draped the long golden chain around the younger's neck along with her own, "It gets _so_ much worse, I assure you."

"That certainly inspires me to enjoy the **present** chaos then doesn't it?"

Chuckling, Hermione shook her head. "Cheeky. Contain that. Where you're going, it's appreciated even less on a woman than in the present."

The Younger grimaced but said nothing else.

"Hold tight, love. We're off to visit an old friend."

April 1943

Two figures appeared in a wooded park area in the wee hours of a morning in late April shortly after the Easter holiday. The world around them groaned at their unnatural existence in space and time, but the older, slightly more worn figure just went about her business and motioned the younger to follow.

"You remember it all, correct?" the Elder asked while rummaging through her bag to produce a very official looking envelope.

"Yes. Every moment."

The world weary witch nodded and led them to a familiar door. It hadn't changed all that much, she mused, a little more worn, a new coat of paint needed perhaps, but aside from that, it was the same simple little door. "Don't touch the letter inside," she said while handing the envelope then the leather bag to her younger self.

"Yes_, _I know." Hermione rolled her eyes in exasperation as though talking to her mum. "I have _all _of your memories and plans nestled in my head, remember? Honestly, I know we've been driven mad in the future, but _please_ give me more credit than all of that."

The Elder ignored her own snark. "Take care of her. I actually _liked_ her."

"_**Yes**_, I recall," Hermione drawled with mild irritation.

"That _cheek_," she reminded with a wink, touching a finger to her nose. "See you soon."

Hermione rolled her eyes again, but the Elder secured her Time-Turner, stepped away, and gave the tiny rings a boggling number of turns. She disappeared with a startling sucking noise before seeing the flippant gesture and time began to flow normally once more. Hermione clutched at her chest and braced her weight on the nearby banister, her heart speeding as though it were about to burst for several long seconds before it righted itself as well.

Hermione breathed deeply until she was confident enough to stand on her own. She fixed her clothing to look more rumpled, as well as decade appropriate, and raised her knuckles to rap sharply on the wood.

There was silence for an unsettling amount of time and she raised her hand to knock once more when she heard it: a muffled fussing about misplaced shoes, some fumbling, and an odd series of what sounded like… feline yowls?

The door cracked open and a dark, tired set of eyes peered carefully around the edge. They were dull and set in a high cheekboned face with the obvious signs of wrinkles starting around the rims. A frizzy head of equally dark hair with wisps of gray at the temples was limply draped over the thin shoulder of the woman who was now blinking owlishly out.

"Can I help you?" the woman rasped.

Another yowl followed the woman's question.

Hermione blinked down, eyes following the noise to a squashy faced feline with long, fluffy white fur and piercing blue eyes – it reminded her of a pale version of her old familiar.

"Little Miss, can I _help_ you?" she asked again, more insistently though still not _quite_ rudely.

The girl grinned inwardly but plastered a stricken look on her face to match her tremulous voice. "Madam Swanson?"

The witch's eyes narrowed at the title, she ducked a bit further behind the edge of the door. "Yes," she replied cautiously.

Hermione held up the envelope, lip wobbling. "I… I was told you were to be expecting me."

Her expression softened at Hermione's softer, more vulnerable tone. She opened the door so that she was plainly standing at the threshold now and accepted the letter. "Expecting you..?"

The woman started speaking, still half asleep and trying to figure out what this young witch was doing at her doorstep, when her fingertips broke the seal and brushed along the note within. The parchment heated rapidly, turning foul, black, and rancid until it and the envelope containing it turned to ash then exploded in the witch's face.

Madam Swanson coughed and choked and wheezed, gasping with a sudden need for air all while her obnoxious little cat yowled up at its owner and rubbed figure eights between the woman's legs. On one final sharp inhale, the ash flooded into her lungs, sending her into another fit of coughs.

Hermione watched patiently. She waited until the witch's fit passed and once her breathing regulated, then spoke in that same worried tone she had used before. "Madam Swanson?"

The witch's eyes snapped back up to Hermione's face, a glossy sheen flashing across her eyes for a second before they cleared. Her face changed dramatically and she turned an openly sympathetic look onto her small frame. "Persephone? Persephone _Callaghan?_"

Hermione nodded shakily.

"Oh… _oh child._ I'm so sorry… come in, come in. I received notice about your parents days ago. I expected you sooner."

A warm swathe of satisfaction stroked down Hermione's spine, Swanson's words a confirmation of another successful spell. She had to resist smirking. Instead, she nodded, casting her eyes downward and continuing her little lip wobble. "I was… delayed… coming back to London."

The old witch tsked and grumbled something about _"bleedin' Americans"_ before making to usher Hermione inside once more. "Come inside. There'll be enough time for that later. We'll get you settled – where are your bags?"

Hermione just motioned to the single leather satchel and the older witch looked as though she were about to cry, herself.

"Of course. Evie was always good with extension charms. When we were girls she—" The woman gasped and fanned at her face suddenly. "No, nevermind that," she choked out, "come in, child. We'll get you settled and get whatever else you need after that."

Hermione allowed herself to be ushered in. "Yes, ma'am. Thank you, ma'am."

The witch tsked again, shutting the door behind them, and lead her up to a room Hermione had seen already once before in her life. "Call me Ruthie."

Hermione did smirk then. "Of course, _Aunt Ruthie_."


	6. Chapter 5 -The Insufferable Swot(Book I)

**05 – The Insufferable Swot**

April 1943

A new day dawned and found Hermione tucked soundly in bed, sunlight streaming in through the gratuitously large bedroom windows. She came awake, not slowly nor at her own pace, but rather abruptly to a heavy press of warmth on her chest and an ornery _**MEOOOOOOOW**_ in her face.

"_**BUGGERING HELL!"**_ Hermione jolted upright, hand immediately scrambling for the wand by her pillow and she thrust it at the sizable fur ball that had been dropped from her chest to her lap.

The large fluffy gray cat sniffed at the tip of it and began licking at the wood.

Hermione, who was very, very suddenly alert, sat staring at the feline who had now begun to lick itself, grew tired of that, and curled back up into a ball. She blinked. And she blinked again. She willed her breathing to slow down and sent a look around the room. There was a cat in her lap, one on the windowsill sunning, and one looking very determined to shove its entire body into one of her shoes, all while she was tucked into an oddly familiar bed.

The night-slash-morning prior trickled back in.

Hermione rubbed at her head, which felt grossly overcrowded by the thoughts of herself, Hogwarts, the burgeoning war and its grizzly outcome , along with a plethora of other unpleasant things her older self saw fit to implant in the book and therefore her head.

A very cunning plan she had had, to implant a piece of her ragged old soul and a slew of dark curses on the object that would comfort her every night after that manipulative old coot's death. From the moment her skin had touched the cover, it had bonded to her and began pouring dark magic into her body, sharing the memories and will of her older self. Bit by bit, every single day and night, every time she opened it to research for some clue in their search to destroy the man of the hour, every time she double checked for something she'd _most assuredly_ missed the time before, or even just to remind herself of the wizard who sent them all off to die, it saturated her very being. It was only a matter of time before the magic took her over completely and brought her up to speed—"aligned their goals", her older self would say.

A genius spell, it was.

_Of course it was, _she thought mildly. _**I**__ cast it._

Hermione had moved on to rubbing at her face now by the time Ruthie appeared in the doorway holding another cat – an entirely different one than she saw at the door and clearly different than the one snoring in her lap.

"Morning, Little Miss," she chirped brightly.

The young witch had to resist casting a glare in her direction out of principle. Instead, she forced a smile and stretched, answering with a voice thick from sleep. "Morning."

"I nearly thought you'd never—_Fanciful?_ Fanciful _get OFF of there!_ Leave her be!"

Ruthie entered and waved a frantic hand at the cat curled on Hermione's legs. The creature barely cracked open an eye, unamused at the ruckus and meowed again. Ruth hissed at the thing, swooped in, scooped him up, plopped him on his feet, and shooed him from the room. The cat's eyes bulged briefly at the intrusion, tail bristling then twitching in her general direction, but left as though he'd meant to anyway, hind legs bobbing dramatically to make sure they _both_ knew that.

Hermione was refraining from looking at Ruthie very oddly. She recalled that she'd cursed the woman to celibacy and a woefully single life the evening of their "talk" to avoid pesky familial obstacles later. Though she'd not really expected _this_.

"Sorry about that." Ruth sent the cat in her arms off in the direction of the first and turned back to the girl once more. "They think they run the place some days. Anyway…how did you sleep, child?"

Hermione rolled her shoulders, loosing a loud popping noise from the move, and replied honestly, "Better than I have in a long while."

Ruth smiled encouragingly, hand coming out to rest over one of hers – the fact that the girl was still clutching her wand seemed to escape her. "Good to hear." Her thumb had begun to rub small circles on the back of the young witch's hand when she carefully added, "Do you think you'd be up for a bit of an outing today?"

"An outing?" Hermione tried not to stare at the hand soothing her as though it were a hot poker.

"Yes. I thought, well, maybe it would make you feel a bit better about…" Her throat bobbed with a loud swallow. "We could get to know each other a bit. I know it must be awful for you, being sent back to a home you don't know – to an Aunt that you've never even met but—of course if this is too much too soon, you can just stay here. It's okay if you want to stay in here all day. I won't say a word about it. . ."

The woman kept on talking, fumbling over her words and attempts at comforting her new ward. The story and memories Hermione had whipped up of Persephone as little Ruthie's freshly orphaned niece were apparently quite tragic and jarring for her.

Sweet little Persephone; born in London to Ruth's Muggle-born step-sister and her husband, moved overseas to chase dear ol' mum and dad's dreams of running a new tome and scroll archival unit being built in America, then transported back to the UK to her only living relative after their untimely demise to senseless riots and all that rot – clearly so very tragic.

_Ruthie, you haven't changed a bit, have you? _Hermione's fleeting smile was genuine.

"That sounds like a marvelous idea, Aunt Ruthie, thank you." She gave her a shy look. "I do need to get a few things if-if it's not too much trouble. I brought what I could but… The American Ministry would allow me only so much through the International Floo Gate."

Ruth huffed at that, squeezing Hermione's hand. "We'll get you taken care of," she resolved, "_After_ breakfast."

**. . . . .**

"Mulciber, for Salazar's sake, will you _focus_?"

The large boy nodded from the wall he was occupying outside the Leaky Cauldron, clapping Tarquin Nott on the shoulder with a big grin. "I _am_ focusing, mate. I'm focusing on that delightful little filly right _there_."

Nott quirked a brow and followed the other boy's not-so-subtle gesturing in the direction of the ice cream parlour down the way. "Who? Where?"

Mulcibur took Tarquin's head in hand and readjusted it until his gaze fell where he'd been looking a moment ago. The boy's eyes narrowed, darted around then widened suddenly when he locked on to the object – the girl – in question.

"Look at all that _hair_," Nott remarked dumbly, causing his friend to snort.

"Wasn't exactly what I was looking at, but yeah, we'll go with it."

Hearing that the idle chatter of the two had shifted to the topic of women somehow in the last thirty seconds, a fair haired blonde boy also chimed in, looking down the road merely long enough to take in the girl's attire. He scoffed and went back to his discussion about sports with yet another dark haired boy. "Not sure what you think is going to happen with that one, gents. I'm not sure she could look any more prim and proper if she wore a sign labelling her a bookworm. Her knickers are probably locked away more tightly than the Chamber itself."

Mulciber sighed wistfully. "And that's why you don't understand the ladies, Abraxas. It's precisely _those_ kinds of girls that give you the _best_ run for your Galleons."

Nott nodded animatedly.

The blonde continued to look confused. "What are you on about?"

"Just think about it, mate," Tarquin Nott said knowingly, "think about parading around, all tightly wound like that. Thinking about the rules all the time. 'Got to be good! Got to be proper! Can't put a toe out of line!' If you can work your way in… just give 'em a little _taste_ of being even a little bit of bad, well…" He trailed off with a waggling of his eyebrows.

Silvas Rosier, the dark haired boy Abraxas Malfoy had been conversing with earlier, snorted. "Or they can just be a terrible lay."

Nott shrugged amicably. "Just a risk one must be willing to take for the sake of experimentation. There is a distinct lack of individuals willing to undergo such arduous testing but… I suppose I can make the sacrifice. I'll let you blokes know the outcome."

A big, meaty hand clamped down on Nott's shoulder and Mulciber grimaced. "I saw her first."

Nott smiled with _all_ of his teeth, plucking the mitt from his robes. "Aye, you did. And if you wanted to claim her, you probably shouldn't have pointed her out. All's fair in love and shagging, mate."

"If you buffoons are _quite_ finished?" A smooth tenor drawled suddenly from behind the group and they all shot up, stock straight. Tom Riddle had emerged from the alleyway between the pub and its neighboring shop, wiping his hands thoroughly with a dark cloth; Rophelius Lestrange loomed behind him like a dull looking guard hound.

"Of course, Tom. Just doing a bit of sightseeing while waiting."

Tom eyed Mulciber carefully and glanced for barely a second in the direction the boys had been fixated on, then back. "I see nothing of interest at the ice cream parlour. Unless you are aiming to fall off the wagon again with that dieting, Mulciber. Did you not express interest in trying out for a Chaser position this coming year? Or did I mishear you?"

"N-no, Tom," the large man said quickly, a tinge of pink coming to his cheeks and a hand covering his stomach. "You didn't mishear."

"Right then. Perhaps you should keep your focus on your studies then? They won't take you if you're failing either, you know?" Riddle's already dark eyes darkened further. "Nor will I. The inner circle is no place for idiots. Though if pressed, I could find a spot for you _elsewhere,_ I'm sure."

Mulciber blanched, bowed his head then shook it. "That won't be necessary, My Lord."

"Excellent." He smiled a smile that was known to melt young girls' hearts and knickers straight away and patted the large man on the back. "Now gentlemen, shall we carry on? We've a few more meetings to attend to before the day is out yet and only a few left before the break is over. I'd very much like to have everything squared away before we return."

"Yes Tom," the reply echoed through the lot of them and they followed at his heels.

. . . . .

Tom emerged from the curtained area of Flourish and Blotts with a few tomes beneath one arm. He had sent his followers off to handle the last couple of his meetings while he went to fetch the necessary texts he would need upon his return to school. They were the last bits of reading he would need to do for this particular leg of his personal project. Overall, he was remarkably pleased with the flow of the day. Aside from a bit of idiocy from his school mates, everything had been going just as planned and scheduled. Tom checked his watch, smirked to himself when he found he was _precisely_ on schedule, and approached the counter to finalize his purchase.

It was about that time when he paused, looked, and frowned.

"_Five_ more sickles, Miss," the clerk said, sounded more than a little perturbed. "The _silver_ ones."

"Yes. One moment, please. I have it, just one moment."

His obstacle, a bushy maned female poised in front of the wizard shopkeep, was rummaging through a worn leather bag. The girl's brow was furrowed, the corner of her lip tugged between her teeth, and most importantly, she was in-his-_way_.

Tom watched the witch continue to sift – _how big was her bloody bag?_ – and he checked his watch again with impatience. The clerk was leaning forward, a scowl on his face, and judging by his own irritation, it seemed as though this had been going on for more than a few minutes.

The girl had managed to produce two more sickles from somewhere in that ridiculous satchel and had gone back to looking for more when Tom finally reached his limit.

_Honestly, she's taking forever._

Gallantly, he strode forward, and placed his books on the counter with a startling thud. Both the shopkeep and the girl straightened and looked at him.

"Tom," the wizard gave him a strained smile, "Sorry lad, it'll be just a second." He didn't bother to mask the irate tone in his voice. "A bit of an issue here."

Tom smiled pleasantly and reached into his pocket, placing the balance for the witch's purchase as well as his own onto the counter. "Here, allow me. These too if you please."

The clerk let loose a thankful exhale and smiled brilliantly back, happily accepting the coins. Before the girl could object, he gathered their books and ushered her outside. It wasn't until they were out and clear of the shop that he handed over the tome, having a quick glance at the cover – _Olde and Forgotten Bewitchments and Charmes__._

"There you are, Miss."

The witch accepted the text and her dark, chocolate eyes scanned him over before coming back to rest on his face. "Thank you," she said and his mouth opened to complete the exchange, but she cut him off matter-of-factly, "however, your chivalry was both unwanted and unneeded."

Tom felt his lids flutter and the corner of his mouth twitched. "Excuse me?"

"I had it." She then took his free hand in hers, opened it, and dropped the remaining sickles she'd been fishing for into his palm.

He looked at them like they were the most offensive objects on Merlin's green earth.

"It was just taking a moment to procure from my bag."

Tom grimaced at the coins but, seeing that she'd drawn back once again and, if her stance said anything, she was not about to let him return them. He couldn't help the dry reply that came next. "Yes, and while you were taking your _moment_ you were wasting several of mine." Pocketing the coins with a more neutral face now, he returned her earlier inspection with his own. He vaguely recalled seeing this woman somewhere – _wasn't this the witch those idiots were fawning over?_ "Perhaps you should be grateful that I stopped the impending altercation with the shopkeeper and be on your merry little way, _girl_."

"And perhaps I would be grateful if said altercation was not one I could have handled on my own. However, seeing as I am _fully_ self-sufficient, I can say 'I had it' - _prat._"

The snap of her reply was so sharp and stinging it left him surprised. Tom was unsure as to the last time someone had addressed him in such a way. He felt the stirrings of something in his blood at the blatant disobedience from the random trollop and his thoughts began to wander. The hand so casually tucked into his pocket tensed as he weighed the pros and cons of taking an extra few minutes to illustrate a very animated lesson in "gratitude towards your superiors" as well as detailing a woman's place in the world when he was interrupted again.

"Persephone? Persephone, where are you child?"

Tom's eyes narrowed briefly at the newcomer before that neutral, yet somehow polite, mask was fitted back into place. The older witch, likely somewhere within her late thirties and early forties was calling out, looking around with a poorly tempered look of concern until she latched onto his general vicinity and hurriedly strode over.

_Persephone?_ He stared at the ungrateful girl and watched her stance transform before his eyes.

Persephone stretched her spine more elegantly, standing up straighter and more proudly than before. That mass of hair – he guessed it was hair – pulled up atop her head yet somehow still _everywhere,_ suddenly managed to look like an artfully crafted fall of curly tendrils where it cascaded down her back and shoulders and she tucked her newly acquired tome into her still slim looking satchel.

"Here Aunt Ruthie," the girl called in a much nicer tone than that she had used previously. Turning her back to Tom, she waved at the approaching woman.

_Persephone._ He raised an eyebrow and took a silent moment to just _take in_ the fluid change in the girl's -in _Persephone's-_ demeanor.

"There you are! I was looking for you in the bookshop and that man—" Part of the way into her speech, Ruth seemed to finally notice the tall, dark haired boy standing all too close and looking all too interestedly towards the interaction. Ruth smoothed her hands down Persephone's shoulders and subtly tucked her against her side and slightly behind. She smiled at the boy but was clearly addressing her ward. "My apologies, I hadn't meant to interrupt." Ruth cast a glance down to her niece who looked back with an easy, even, and mild smile. "Who is your friend here?"

The young witch picked up flawlessly and moved away from her aunt to introduce them. "Aunt Ruthie, this is… Tom."

Persephone turned to him with a charming expression that reminded him a bit of a fox… or a wolf… or perhaps something much more malicious before it was about to strike with the insincerity behind her perfectly formed smile. Without missing a beat, he took the woman's hand to make a small bow and brush his lips over her knuckles. "Tom Riddle," he said smoothly before straightening and releasing her hand with a lingering touch, "Pleased to make your acquaintance, Madam."

"It is indeed a pleasure to meet you, Tom." Ruthie smirked with open amusement and mumbled over her shoulder to Persephone. "Well he's a charming one, isn't he?"

Persephone sniffed at that but said, "Clearly, he's my knight in polished armour. He helped me with a bit of a currency exchange problem."

Tom smirked and wondered if her nose could climb any higher into the air while still under this rather impressive display. "What can I say? I have a weakness for beautiful witches."

He daringly reached a hand out as if to brush along Persephone's cheek but merely hovered over the skin. Tom allowed his earlier dark disciplinary thoughts to surface and the dangerous flicker to come to his eyes. He sought her stare, expecting the girl to flinch away at the unspoken threat but instead, when he met her gaze, he found her staring right back with her lips quirked just slightly.

"I consider myself fortunate that I suffer no such maladies in regards to the opposite sex," Persephone practically purred at a level low enough for her aunt to miss yet clearly enough so that he got every syllable.

He felt that twitch from earlier tugging at the corner of his eye. Tom still held her stare and in a nearly habitual fashion, he tried to snake his way into her thoughts. _Something about this witch. . . _

Tom's train of thought was cut off abruptly when almost immediately after he'd started, he ran _hard_ into the mind's equivalent of a brick wall. He pushed and nudged at the blockade and all he got for his efforts was the unsettling feeling of trying to move through a lake of muck and sludge. This time, he couldn't control the look on his face and both brows went up from shock.

Persephone tilted her head quizzically, but her own expression didn't change. If anything, her smirk grew. "Please excuse us Tom. We've another set of errands to run, but it was such a pleasure meeting you. I thank you again for your _gracious_ help today. Perhaps we'll see one another again."

He nearly missed his cue but nodded smoothly. "Of course. Good day Madam…" He stared at Persephone a hair too long. "Miss Persephone…"

Persephone smiled sweetly and turned with her aunt, a guiding hand placed at the small of her back as they wove through the lingering holiday crowd and left the young man to his own devices.

**. . . . .**

Once they'd traveled a good distance away, the snooty persona of Persephone melted away somewhat from Hermione's limbs and she thought back on her first formal meeting with Tom Marvolo Riddle.

Voldemort the man was an insane and chaotic sociopath, one of the most evil dark wizards of all time, strangely hell bent on the eradication of an entire ethnic group for reasons that he'd probably already forgotten, and generally speaking an overall amazingly gifted and talented wizard – dark or no.

Tom Riddle the boy was an intensely charismatic and supposedly brilliant individual with a tragic past that paved the way for the insane adult. With her brief exposure to him thus far, she could partially understand how he'd fooled so many people, but the other part of her was just disgusted at their lack of observance.

As it was, Hermione had already felt the obvious taint of dark magic all around him, even at fifteen and without a single horcux to his name yet. The fact that Dumbledore, supposed wise and powerful wizard and the closest thing to a foster parent during Tom's stay at the school, had not come to realize the things he was destined for by then tried her patience. She was also curious to the fact that Tom himself hadn't sensed the darkness flowing through _her_ body as she had his. Perhaps it was just her constant exposure to it from that bloody house she'd been slaving in for a decade that made her attuned to it, though the occlumency may have helped to some degree – she knew it helped to repress the pesky Gryffindor tendencies that kept trying to flare up now and then anyway.

Hermione smirked at that thought.

The task of possessing one's younger self when it was as strong willed as it was, was daunting indeed. If it happened to be such a fortunate or well-timed thing that said self had been tortured within an inch of her life and her defenses had been utterly obliterated by the time she got her hands on the cursed book again, well, that was clearly just lucky timing. Clearly.

In any case, after her short time with Tom so far, she realized that if she had traveled to this year with the intention of the boy's redemption she would have been sorely disappointed; he was already well on track for _all_ of the evil deeds that awaited him.

It was extremely fortunate that she hadn't traveled to the past with such intent.

"You just met that boy today?" Ruth asked, jostling Hermione from her thoughts. The witch was partly curious and partly puffed up in a protective fashion.

"Yes." Hermione glanced at the woman from the corner of her eyes, "When else could I have?"

Ruth's brow furrowed and she shook her head at the silly question, reaching up to rub at her temple. "I…don't know. Sorry, that was a silly question. You two just seemed so… familiar with one another to have just met."

Hermione shrugged. "He reminded me of someone I knew from back home."

The older witch glanced down at Hermione with a frown. "Persephone," Ruth hesitated, "I know that it can't be easy for you, for all this change, but…"

The girl blinked oddly at the woman who appeared to be stumbling repeatedly over multiple approaches at whatever the hell she was trying to say next. It was at about the fifth or sixth strained-apprehensive-doting face that she grew tired of it. "Yes, Aunt Ruthie?" she prompted.

"Thank you," Ruth blurted suddenly. Her eyes went round and her face flushed before she shook her head, then turned to fully tug Persephone into a big, strangling hug. "For coming out with me today. I can't imagine how difficult it is for you, love, and I know you don't know me as anything but your mum's sister, but I'll take care of you. I promise, okay?"

Hermione was thankful that the woman couldn't see the face that she was making while Ruth cradled it to her bosom. Her arms came up to hug her "aunt" but she hesitated the closer she got; it had been such a long time since she'd willingly touched another person with anything but malice in her heart and, frankly, it was just _weird._ Hermione clenched her jaw, sucked in a breath and closed her arms around the older witch who ruffled her hair with a shaky exhale. "Okay."

And was this woman _crying_?

She _was._

_Well, she did just lose her fake sister to some freak occurrence,_ she mused.

Awkwardly, Hermione rubbed little circles on Ruthie's back while the woman cried ungracefully from their spot tucked off to the side in the Alley. This only seemed to make the witch's sobs come harder and, on a hunch, Hermione curled her fingers and progressed into a very light scratching motion that she'd often used to soothe Crookshanks instead; the sobs lessened in volume until Ruth was just holding her very tightly and sniffling.

_Excellent. My spells turned her into a spinster cat lady. Brilliant._


	7. Chapter 6 - Alumnus (Book I)

**06 – Alumnus**

April 1943

Hermione was out on the patio of _Ruth's Patisserie_ – in addition to becoming a cat lady, it seemed little Ruthie was also taking the entrepreneur route – languidly nibbling on a funny little croissant with orange marmalade in its center that was simply out of this world when Ruthie came tearing out of the building flailing with a letter in hand.

"It came! It came, it came! OH! Persephone, they've accepted you!"

She paused with her fork halfway to her mouth and looked quizzically at Ruth. "What came? Who's accepted me?"

"Your _letter!_" Ruthie said with wide eyes as though the girl was absolutely bonkers. "Your _Hogwarts_ letter!" When Hermione gave her nothing but a blank stare, Ruth gasped. "Have you _never_ heard of _**Hogwarts?**_"

Hermione hid her amusement behind another bite of pastry. "Hog-whats?"

The older witch looked as though she might faint. Ruth came to Hermione's table and plopped heavily into a seat across from her, taking the girl's hands – fork and all – into her own. "Oh, _child_. _**Hogwarts!**_ It's a most brilliant magical school. Every family with a little witch or wizard hopes to be accepted to it when their time comes and Persephone, they've accepted you! Surely you had something of the sort back in America!"

Hermione, fully in her Persephone visage, tilted her head in a birdlike fashion. "Of course. There were a few, actually."

"So then you know! It's so exciting, isn't it?" Ruthie practically gushed, squeezing Hermione's hands.

"Aunt Ruthie," she started and the witch turned a sappy smile on her, "how did they 'accept' me if I never applied for entry?"

"Oh." Ruth looked away sheepishly and focused her stare on their joined hands. "I sent them a letter the morning after you arrived."

Hermione smirked and she watched the woman's face with her next question. "What prompted you to do that?"

The witch's eyes glossed, pupils dilating oddly as she answered. "I…don't know. It felt like the right thing to do. A young girl like yourself shouldn't be cooped up with an old bat like me all day when you've still a couple years left for your education yet."

After the words stopped, the silver shimmer to Ruth's eyes faded away and she was looking to Hermione again with that brilliant, cheery smile. "You'll just _love_ it there! Me an' your mum went and it was wonderful!"

"I'm sure." She extracted her hands finally and went back to eating her pastry, more than satisfied by the hold her magic had on the woman. "When am I expected to attend?"

"Next week!"

At this she feigned shock. "Next week?!"

"Yes! They made an exception for your situation and have invited you to attend through the remainder of the term to get acclimated." Ruthie's face scrunched as she thought about something. "You would technically fall into the end of the fifth year here…I wonder if they will have you take your O.W.L.s…that wouldn't be very fair though…" She brightened again so dramatically the turn nearly gave Hermione whiplash. "Oh but don't worry! It'll be fine! We'll head back to Diagon Alley and get you all the things you need. They sent me the full list and while you are living under my roof you will have full access to the family vaults for whatever is required. If you're anything like Evie, I'm sure you're brilliant enough to pass with flying colours, if they should test you!"

Hermione smiled, a genuine one, though not nearly for the reasons the other witch would have guessed, and she reached out to pet Ruthie's hair. "That sounds perfect, Aunt Ruthie. It's just perfect."

Ruth beamed at her with the strangest sense of accomplishment pulsing through every inch of her body.

**. . . . . **

Abraxas and Mulciber were playing a game of exploding snap while Lestrange did that looming thing he did from his seat on the train. Tom had opted to sit alone across the aisle where he could still keep a watchful eye on his idiot minions but actually have the potential to get some work done. A handful of his books were spread out on the table, one stacked on another, stacked on another with pages all open to topics about charming or enchanting inanimate objects and the shelf life of the magic used to bind the spells to them.

The train whistle sounded, a loud, sharp sound that made all the students in the cabin look up. Tom sighed and began a methodical way of shutting each tome. "Come along, time to make sure everyone is in uniform before we reach the school."

Mulciber gathered the cards and declared himself the winner of their challenge on circumstance - much to Malfoy's displeasure – while grinning cheekily and moved to gather his robes and Prefect badge. Abraxas scowled but did the same. The three of them, once outfitted, moved from their cabin back through the other cars with a slew of other Prefects, checking and announcing to each set of students in their respective nooks to begin dressing for arrival.

Abraxas had been left with the very last set of cars to go through and had already had to break up a handful of snogging couples with a stern threat of point deductions. Still irritated from the sass the last compartment gave him, Abraxas jerked open the final compartment door and started his usual terse command to get changed, stopping abruptly at the sight.

The girl had her back to him, the skirt of her uniform neatly draped over her hips and nicely rounded bum falling at the exact regulation length. Slim, tanned legs peeked from beneath her hem for only a handful of centimetres before disappearing again behind brilliant white colored knee socks that hugged her calves all the way down the longest, most perfectly proportioned legs he'd seen on a girl so petite. She was fixing the collar of her neatly pressed oxford when she finally turned.

"May I help you?" the girl said primly, smoothing her hands over the front of her gray pinafore until its pleats fell neatly over her thighs. Her dark eyes scanned over the boy standing in her compartment doorway with his jaw partially open and crystal gray gaze examining her figure. She took in his pale complexion, those piercing eyes, and his equally pale blond hair and sighed to herself.

_So they really __**are**__ all just that pretty._

Abraxas followed the trek her hands made with his eyes, watching them touch all along the modest swell of her breasts, past her tapered waist, and over her slim stomach then reach back up to pull the most unruly mane of hair free from the confines of her garment. He was so distracted by the way her deep auburn tresses bounced and coiled in some of the craziest curls in existence, falling around her face in a wild halo, that he _completely_ missed the question.

The girl raised an eyebrow and cleared her throat softly, watching his glazed stare blink into clarity, focusing finally on her face. "May I help you?" she repeated.

Abraxas' mouth flapped a couple of times before the sound actually came out. "Ah-uh…uniform—"

She tilted her head to one side, blinked at him, then at herself, then back at him.

"Right. Changing. You are. Now."

"Are you alright? You're a little—" she motioned to her face. "-red. Would you like to sit down a moment?"

He coughed and dipped his head. "No uh…just. Just doing rounds, miss. Making sure everyone heard the alert to…change." Abraxas managed to pull a charming smile out of somewhere. "Carry on."

The witch smiled brightly, walked the few steps to the doorway and reached out to run her hand over the shiny badge pinned to his robe. His chest hitched noticeably and she noted that his breathing stopped abruptly. "Interesting…" Her face leaned closer to read the embossing on the badge. "_'Prefect'_," she said studiously then asked, "Like an officer of sorts for the school?"

Abraxas took a moment to realize she was asking him another question and stuttered at the way her fingers were rubbing across the filigree, occasionally brushing the fabric of his robes and effectively stroking his chest in the tiniest of circles. "R-r-right. Of-of sorts." When he was able to get his bearings once more – about at the same time she stopped rubbing the crest pinned to him and provided a little more room between himself and the heat of her delicate little body – he looked at her a bit oddly. It was almost as if something swirled in those deep pools of chocolate blinking up at him; he found it increasingly difficult to look away. "I don't recall seeing you around the halls. Are you a transfer?"

She straightened and nodded with another smile. "Yes. It's strange isn't it? Joining in the middle of the year." The witch sighed and gnawed at the corner of her lip some, tugging it between her teeth in a bit of a fret. "I hope it won't be too awful. I'm not very good when it comes to meeting new people and I didn't expect to move and this is—" She took a deep breath as if to calm herself as though she were frazzled. "Well it's just _quite_ different from the school I came from."

Abraxas stared outright at the new visual stimulation of her lip biting – she had perfect teeth to go along with those perfect legs of hers. He swallowed and focused back on her face. "Beauxbatons?" he ventured a guess.

The girl laughed and it was as though a tinkling of very pleasant bells filled the compartment. She placed a dainty hand on his arm for _just a second_ and moved back inside to finish getting changed; he gravitated toward her, moving past the threshold just enough to be considered "in" the compartment but keeping the door open so no true foul play could be afoot. She pulled down an ankle length set of robes with a boldly embroidered Hogwarts crest on the breast and went about fastening it into place.

"I'll take that as a compliment. Even _I_ have heard of that school… no, I moved here just a week ago from overseas, from America."

"_You're_ American?" Abraxas blurted dumbly before he could help himself, his jaw nearly hitting the floor.

He wasn't sure if he should have been put off or turned on by that, though while he was trying to decide he noted how she paused in her dressing once more and was giving him a _look_ again. His skin prickled and his gut felt hollow and sickly at the thought of having offended her. Her hands fiddled with the hem at her pleats, giving him a barely there glimpse of another tiny portion of thigh, and he realized he was _far_ from put off by any aspect of her.

He clumsily tried to recover. "I-I meant that your accent is _brilliant_, I never would have guessed!"

She let out a noise somewhere between a chuckle and a snort at the indelicate compliment and quaintly explained, "I was born here. As were my mum and dad, but we all moved when I was a babe. I don't remember any of it from before but...certain circumstances came about and, long story short, here we are." The girl gestured to herself with a cheeky smile. "You can take the girl out of Britain but you can't take Britain out of the girl, I suppose."

His eyes followed her motion again. His mouth dried a little. "Brilliant," Abraxas muttered.

"_Oy! Malfoy! Get a move on! Meeting's startin' in five!"_

Abraxas jumped at the sound of his name, stumbling back into the narrow walkway of the train car. He scowled to his left, catching Mulciber waving him on hurriedly, and eventually let out a dramatically agitated sigh. Sending an apologetic look back to the odd new transfer girl, he was finally able to muster a Malfoy brand smirk to flash towards her. "Sorry love, duty calls, you know?" He so casually brushed his hand over the badge she'd been fondling earlier and if it happened to catch the light and glimmer a hair more than normal in that moment, it was purely coincidence. "I'm sure to see you later, being a _Prefect_ – officer type - and all. If you have any trouble or need help finding your way—"

"I'll look for you," she purred and it turned that suave smirk of his into a steadily widening, albeit lopsided grin.

"Yeh. . ."

"_ABRAXAS! Come ON! MEET-ING! Tom'll go spare if you make Slytherin look bad!"_

The last seemed to jolt Abraxas out of his daze and he apologized to the witch again before shutting her door and scurrying off in the direction of the Head and Prefects train car.

After it was clear he'd gone and was not heading back for any reason, Hermione extracted her wand from its spot within the folds of her robes and reset the altered confundus charm she'd set to trigger on the door. Once her makeshift ward had been refreshed, she sat back down to pull out the decade's current edition of _Hogwarts: A History_ and catch up a bit with some light reading.

**. . . . .**

Hermione sat in the uncomfortably padded chair in front of Headmaster Armando Dippet's desk, doing her best to not fall asleep during his droning speech. Due to her strange admission, he had invited her to eat with him so he could go over the ins and outs of the school before releasing her into the start of the second term. It was all carefully orchestrated on her part, of course, and Dippet was decidedly less savvy in the ways of magical treachery than his successor, so he was a delightful pushover.

"Now, Miss Callaghan-"

Hermione sat up, blinking herself awake and alert with a patronizing smile on her face.

"-do you have any questions?"

Having not actually listened to much of anything he had said, she shook her head. "No Headmaster. Everything is very… self-explanatory, I would say."

"Wonderful!" The old man clapped his hands together and pushed off from his seat in an animated fashion. "Then there is only one task left to be done before you're able to retire for the evening." At her curious look, Dippet smiled warmly. "The sorting, of course."

"Oh, of course, the 'houses'," Hermione said sweetly as though she'd simply forgotten.

She watched the old man pull the ragged sorting hat from atop one of the many curio cases in the office, observing that it looked just as tattered as the one she remembered being plopped on her head in her first year. This, she was quite curious about. She wondered if, knowing the things that she knew now, what this wizened old hat would have to say about her this time.

The murky brown cap sank well past her brow, all the way down to the bridge of her nose, shrouding her in that familiar darkness.

"_Persephone Callaghan. I've never heard of you…you weren't on the roster."_

A familiar tone rasped in her head. The greeting surprised her and Hermione responded the only way she could think to, _"I am a transfer, Sir Hat. I would not be on th-"_

"_No, no, no. That's not it at all. You don't belong here at all do you?"_

Her jaw tensed and she didn't know what to say then.

"_No. You don't. You're up to something Miss 'Callaghan'. Something very…complicated."_

"_I'm not sure precisely what you're referring to, but I would like to get some rest, so if you could hurry this up, I'd be __**much**__ obliged." _She retorted snappily to the bloody know-it-all hat.

The thing chuckled and hummed on her head then sighed. _"Well you're very cunning, that's to be sure, but you're not a very good liar. Still, half-truths and evasion are valid tactics - Slytherin would suit you quite well. But there are dark times ahead…too dangerous, much too dangerous for a Muggle-born there…"_

Hermione stiffened, somehow surprised that it was still able to peg her for exactly _what_ she was, despite how easily she'd navigated all these other supposedly gifted witches and wizards. Of all the research that she'd done there was only so much about the magic and sentience of the Sorting Hat, and not a bit of it was truly helpful. The damned hat was a wild card in the whole operation. _"What do you know?"_ It was more of a demand than a question.

The hat just chuckled again. _"Everything and nothing at all, Miss Callaghan."_

She grimaced.

"_Well then, it's settled—"_

"**RAVENCLAW!"** The Sorting Hat shouted, bouncing a bit on her noggin.

Headmaster Dippet clapped then plucked the hat from her head to set it back on its shelf. Hermione blinked owlishly several times at the sudden reappearance of _all the light_ in his office at once.

_Ravenclaw_, Hermione mused bitterly, _likely the house I should have been in in the first place. Perhaps if I'd never met those blasted boys in the first place, I wouldn't be a slave in the future._ She frowned then. _Or I would have just died much, much younger because Harry would've had less than a clue._ Hermione ignored the dull pang of _things_ clenching in her chest at the thought of her past – or future, as it were – and concentrated on her task at hand.

"Brilliant! I knew – _knew_ – ever since I received your transcripts Miss Callaghan. There's simply no other place you would fit more perfectly than Ravenclaw. It's just simply _wonderful!_" The old man continued gushing, taking his wand and waving it at her uniform so that a proudly embroidered crest appeared over her left breast. "Come along now, I've kept you quite late this evening talking your ear off, it's only right I see you to the tower."

"Tower, sir?" Hermione asked offhandedly, gathering her robes and quirking a brow at the blue and bronze striped tie that had found its way to her pile. She followed the headmaster out of his office while picking lint from her skirt and trying to convincingly feign interest in anything else the blathering fool had to say.

"Ahhh, yes, child. I hope you're ready for a bit of a jaunt. Ravenclaw tower is one of the highest in the entire school. It has an excellent view of the lake and Forbidden Forest-" He turned to look at her over his shoulder. "-which, if I didn't mention before—"

"Is _**forbidden**_," she finished for him as politely as she could, "No, you did mention it, sir, at least once."

_Or fifty times. Merlin-bloody-Christ._

**. . . . .**

The return feast had come and gone and the first day back to classes was full of the usual hustle and bustle. The hall had already settled into its usual noisy din and, as was typical, Tom's not-so-merry gang of individuals was back at his side.

_Merlin will I be glad to not have to spend breaks with these idiots soon. Better still than the orphanage, I suppose._ Tom flipped another page in the book he was reading, endeavoring to ignore the moronic chatter around him.

Across the table Rosier and Malfoy sat and spoke about Quidditch and other things entirely uninteresting, to his left Nott and Mulciber discussed women, and Lestrange sat to his right simply shoveling food into his maw, apparently barely recalling that he also required oxygen to sustain himself and could not live on mounds of potatoes alone. Tom sighed, resisted rolling his eyes, and instead sipped some juice from his goblet before returning to his research.

He was content to drown out the drivel his gang was going on about, allowing himself to sink into the simple pleasure of memorizing pieces of text that would allow him to add the final set of spells to his diary and make it a nearly sentient thing. It was fortunate that Flourish and Blotts had a copy of the book he'd needed to garner the knowledge to do so.

His concentration stuttered for a moment at the memory of his unpleasant encounter with that equally unpleasant witch and he sneered in the general direction of his book. The baseline standard of manners must have been lowered when he wasn't looking because he was in the presence of that woman-that _girl_-for all of barely ten minutes and she had managed to insult him at _least_ a handful of times.

_Honestly, was informing a woman of her place in the hierarchy of the world not a thing anymore?_

Nott and Mulciber's chatter stopped abruptly. Their yammering on and on about this witch or that one was always a constant set of white noise to every conversation that it had become commonplace. It was a thing that you never even realized was there until all of a sudden it wasn't. The absence of it was noticeable enough that even Lestrange stopped funneling vittles into his gullet and looked up and over at them – _that _got Tom's attention.

Rophelius Lestrange blinked dimly when he realized the other two had not actually stopped chattering, just taken it to a much, much lower level and were now muttering and pointing in the direction of the teachers' table like two excited little girls.

"'Ey!" Rophelius snapped, "Oi! You two! Whatever you Nancies are pointing at, cut it out. Last thing we need is someone like that Dumbledolt to see you pointing, or talking, or having a bloody independent thought. He'll come and take points or give a year of detentions before we even get the first bell."

"Perhaps _you_ can look and point then, mate. No danger of an independent thought there if you happen to get caught," Nott snapped defensively.

Lestrange, the larger of the two of them, sneered menacingly and began to get up with a clear intent of something quite physical to follow when Tom, sounding terribly bored at their posturing, stopped him.

"Stay seated, Rophelius. I daresay that you dragging Nott along the table by his ear would draw a bit more attention than some girlish tittering about whatever it is they're on about."

The scowling, too big for his year boy gave Nott one last vile sneer before plopping back down onto the bench heavily to resume his brutish feeding.

Tom controlled his own look of distaste at the way Lestrange went back to piling food into his mouth and tried to get back to his book before the long trek to potions.

The hens were whispering more avidly now and it was their strange sense of urgency housed within their low, yet still annoyingly audible murmuring that finally set him off. "For Salazar's sake, what _**are**_ you bloody yammering about?" Tom snapped.

His tone was so suddenly loud – for Tom, anyway – that it made all of the crew sit up straighter. The two being addressed paled somewhat and the others did this funny sort of thing where they sat at attention while dutifully averting their eyes and general body language until they were called upon, if at all.

Tarquin Nott's gaze shifted sideways again to the professor's table and then back just as quickly. His mouth opened and closed a couple of times before he finally got a sound out; he mumbled. Nott flinched - Tom hated it when people mumbled.

Tom narrowed his eyes. "Say again?"

It was polite enough, but Nott knew better. He bowed and cowered as best he could at their table without anyone truly noticing and making a scene. Tarquin kept his eyes locked onto the space on the table in front of him and cleared his throat before speaking again. "The girl. We were talking a-a-about th-the girl, Tom."

"A girl?" A dark eyebrow went up in an entirely unamused fashion. "All yours and Mulciber's obnoxious whispering over a _girl_ still?"

"Th-_**the**_ girl…My Lord." Nott added the last in a formally informal attempt at any sort of forgiveness for irritating the other boy. They were to keep his proper title to themselves for the most part for now, but so long as there wasn't anyone very close and listening, Nott knew that Tom preened under the acknowledgement. Maybe it would make the punishment later less severe.

Tom let his eyes run over Tarquin Nott and his funny cowering. If the boy had been a dog, he would have his tail so firmly lodged between his legs it would fuse itself there. Hell, he'd be wallowing before him, belly up in a puddle of his own urine. The latter thought made him scrunch his nose.

_How funny, _thought Tom, finally moving to shut the book he'd been reading from all this time. _The idiot annoys me over breakfast and he's running so scared now that he's stuttering._ A very slight smirk tilted up the corner of his mouth. _It's not the world yet, but…_

"_The_ girl?" Tom repeated slowly after an awkwardly long pause. The group of them shifted in their seats in response. Tom sighed boredly, but asked, "_What_ girl? Which of these dull witches are you so infatuated with now? Which of—"

"Tom! Tom! There you are, my boy! I have someone I'd like for you to meet!"

Tom's jaw snapped shut, the back of his tongue pressed strongly to the backs of his teeth – he also hated being interrupted. Breathing in and out once smoothly, Tom turned in his seat to greet his Head of House, his "model student" mask falling into place – and then it up and fell off.

The old, portly Professor Slughorn was scooting towards their table with one arm hovering in the air behind the little witch he was ushering their way. The top of her head barely came up to the professor's chin and her small form was draped in the full Hogwarts uniform: stark white oxford, gray fitted and pleated Ravenclaw branded pinafore with a matching house tie-fuck, she even had the glossiest, _most_ regulation and uniform-like shoes he'd ever seen; it was all fitted and tailored to just the perfect, most proper look he never even thought was possible.

And it was all on _that_ girl, that _**Persephone**_**.**

He did well schooling his features quickly once more before they drew too close.

_Of __**course**__ that obnoxious twat is here. Why wouldn't she be? I've only __**never**__ seen her around __**anywhere**__ before this past week, so it makes all the sense in the world for her to be __**here**__. _

Tom stood for Persephone's arrival, earning a chuff of approval from his professor.

"Tom," Slughorn began merrily, "This is Persephone Callaghan! Miss Callaghan, this is Tom Riddle – he's the lad I mentioned to you back there."

Tom started to extend his hand to the girl until he realized that she was still looking at the surrounding walls and the magical ceiling overhead. His eye twitched at her flippant behavior. Clearing his throat, he tried again, "Miss Callaghan, what a pleasure." The flat tone of his voice indicated to those who would listen that he was anything _but_ pleased. "How surprising it is to see _you_ again."

Persephone suddenly, sharply, yet somehow entirely innocently turned her attention to him. Her eyes roamed over his person with thinly veiled disinterest and she asked politely with a beautifully patronizing smile, "Have we met before?"

If he had been anyone else, he would have been startled by the way she was smiling at him. It wasn't that it was pretty, or serene, or pleasant to look it – it was none of those things, not to him – it was that she was doing that _thing_ again.

She was doing as she'd done in the Alley when her whole demeanor changed far too fluidly from the snappy little tart to a pleasant girl with an easy, lovely smile that reached every last centimetre of her face - except, he noted, for her eyes. The rest of her looked pleased and placid and lit up with juvenile naïveté, but her eyes were hard and dark and cold and _full_ of recognition.

Tom caught those cold, dark eyes as he took one of her hands and went through the motion of bowing handsomely over it. He watched her long enough to see the black of her pupils begin to bleed into the deep chocolate pools of her irises only to squirrel back away to their proper place before they would do it again.

"No. No, of course not. My mistake. It is a pleasure to—" He paused, seeing the colors in her eyes shift subtly once more. "—meet you, Miss Callaghan."

Persephone's lips curved upwards much more fully than before.

There it was again.

_A piranha,_ he thought, _a piranha before feeding time perhaps. Still and quiet and eerily aware of everything around her but with nothing to indicate she was __**truly**__ watching or listening._

"No, no Mister Riddle, it is a pleasure to finally meet _you_."

"Finally?" For some reason, she looked somehow even more amused at his question. That alone made him want to scowl.

"Oh yes," she replied brightly, sending a warm look towards Slughorn. "As the Professor mentioned, he's told me quite a bit about you this morning already. It's almost as though I already know you!"

At that, he finally did scowl, though it was brief and hardly noticeable to anyone aside from the one it was meant for. Tom turned his stare onto the professor now with a boyish grin. "All good things I hope?"

Professor Slughorn let out a hearty laugh and clapped the young man on the back. "Only good things to tell! Miss Callaghan here will be joining us at Hogwarts for the rest of the year to get acclimated to how we do things before returning to finish out her final years of her magical education! _Very _exciting. She was the top of the class at her last school according to her transcripts, so naturally, you came up!" Slughorn leaned in towards the boy with a conspiratorial grin. "If she'd been with us from the start, my boy, she'd be giving you a run for your money for that spot."

"There are still two years and some change yet, Professor," Persephone chimed in good naturedly and Slughorn laughed at her tenacity and cheek.

Tom's gaze narrowed at the same rate his tight lipped smile widened. "Well I, for one, am pleased that you've seen fit to make Hogwarts your home for these next couple of years. I can't begin to tell you how refreshing it will be to actually have someone even remotely close to catching up to me." His attention shifted to his minions who were doing a poor job of concealing their rapt interest in the conversation taking place; they all found something terribly intriguing in their porridge after that.

"Wonderful! That's m'boy!" Slughorn beamed and somehow ignored completely the snide remark. "Always so welcoming to new students, even if their situation might be a bit… _unusual._"

"I do try, sir."

"And you succeed! That is why, dear boy, that I know you'll be able to help Miss Callaghan this morning."

Tom looked at Persephone, half expecting her attention to be wandering again, nearly surprised to see her staring at him intently with her head just barely tilted in a quizzical fashion. "Of course, Professor. How ever may I be of assistance?"

"Well, due to the suddenness of Miss Callaghan's arrival, it has been a bit of a challenge and compromise getting her worked into classes."

"Is she not attending classes with the rest of her house and her year? I'm afraid I don't understand, Professor." Tom grimaced, feeling as though he knew exactly what was about to come his way.

"Quite alright, quite alright. The answer to that question is, of course, yes and no." At Tom's inquiring look, Professor Slughorn hooked his fingers around the edges of his lapels and rocked on the balls of his feet. "As I said, hers is a bit of an unusual situation, joining us as she is. We have a rather large class size overall for this year – as I'm sure you're aware – and where she can, Miss Callaghan will be attending with Ravenclaw. But there were a few subjects that are much more hands on that really can't stand for many more bodies in the sessions without losing valuable instruction. It is with Miss Callaghan's best interests in mind that we – the scheduling committee – thought it better that she attend the sessions with the lowest individual head counts so she may truly experience a proper time of it here at Hogwarts. We'll have more time to correct the issue for the subsequent years, but it's an immediate fix that will work well enough!"

Tom was silent for several seconds as he processed this information. Slughorn kept referring to it as an "unusual situation" and each time the hairs on the back of his neck prickled; if he narrowed his eyes any further they'd be shut. "Forgive my incessant questioning, Professor, but where precisely is it that I may… 'be of assistance'?"

"Ah, my apologies, Tom. I would very much appreciate you looking after Miss Callaghan today in Potions and Defense Against the Dark Arts. You know, show her to the rooms, partner with her if you need. Her other class times and sizes will work fine for the content, however these ones in particular are a tad overfull already. Somewhat of an oversight on our part, I'm afraid." Slughorn added the last part bashfully.

The young wizard's jaw ticked and he studiously avoided looking at the girl who he could still feel looking at him. _Of course,_ he repeated his earlier thoughts, _of-fucking-course. The two bloody places where I need her to be the __**least **__and I'm stuck babysitting her rude, arrogant, bitchy__**—**_

"Professor, I'm sure I can find my way well enough."

Persephone's voice, wary and meek, snapped him out of his ever growing anger and he was sure he was glaring now.

"_Nonsense,_ child!"

"No, it'll be fine – I'll be fine." Her eyes shifted back to the quietly fuming wizard, though if you weren't looking, you would certainly miss his very slight displays of his feelings on the suggestion. "I would hate to be a bother and put you out, Mister Riddle. That is certainly _not_ at all why I came to Hogwarts. Please feel no obligation to me, I will find the rooms on my own—"

"Nonsense!" Slughorn said again, smile faltering.

"Nonsense is right," Tom said all of a sudden with a very firm note to the words that appeared to startle her. He made sure she was looking at him, staring with that strange gaze locked onto his own before he continued. "Don't be ridiculous, Miss Callaghan. The Professor is quite right in bringing you to me. I would be happy to assist you throughout your stay here. You shan't find a more thorough guide and partner than I, and I would loathe to leave you in the hands of someone less capable."

Professor Slughorn expression went back to "beaming". "Excellent Tom! I _knew_ I could count on you. I've got to go prepare for class this morning. See to it that you both get there in one piece for me, will you?"

"Of course, Professor. You can absolutely trust me."

"Brilliant!" Slughorn flashed a lopsided grin and nodded to each of them in turn. "I'll be off then. See you soon Miss Callaghan, Tom."

Both teenagers bid the man farewell with Tom staring hard at his back until he was well out of sight beyond the doors to the Great Hall. The boy took a deep breath as if steadying himself for something quite unpleasant before he finally turned back to the petite witch.

Persephone raised a thin eyebrow at the rigidity of his back.

After what seemed like ages, Tom finally turned back to her and motioned towards the Slytherin table where his followers were still pretending that they weren't listening to every single syllable of the conversation happening less than a metre away from them all.

"Would you like to sit with us for the remainder of the meal, Miss Callaghan?" Tom asked, "Unless, of course, you'd prefer to dine with your house."

She looked to the bench, took in the head count of boys sitting all around Tom's vacant spot, and smiled. "Oh, yes, please. That would be splendid."

Once the lot of them were all more or less formally acknowledged into existence, there was some awkward shuffling. They all, save for Lestrange, rose briefly from their respective seats until they were introduced. Persephone cooed a bit at recognizing Abraxas; he flushed, she fluttered her lashes, Tom glowered.

Persephone finally settled into a spot at the table and only after that did the boys seat themselves once more with Tom taking up the place next to her between her and Rophelius.

Tom reached to his side to retrieve a plate that one of the others had neglected to fill in lieu of idle morning chitchat and placed it before his new and infuriating anchor. He was about to begin filling her plate for her and serving her a standard of things: toast wedges, eggs, sausage, all the usual, when her arm reached past his to do it herself. He bristled and felt the muscles at the corner of his eye twitch.

**. . . . .**

Breakfast continued on, with most of Tom's gang doting attention on the new girl.

Malfoy, who had insisted under several hushed breaths to Rosier that he must not have had a good look at the witch at the Alley because he certainly would not have ignored this one, was being significantly more charming than he'd managed to be on the train; he only sputtered _once_ when she reached over and touched his hand during a laugh they all shared over some godawful joke Nott had made.

Nott himself grinned and quipped and began taking mental tallies of the times he said something even mildly racy or laced with innuendo that made Persephone blush. She would smirk a little, her cheeks would pink, and she'd bat her lashes and look off to the side. Every time she did it – _four times now_ – Nott felt his stomach tumble and his chest flutter and he would quickly rifle through his mental stores to figure out how to make her do it again.

Tom had tried shooting them dark looks to get their fawning over the stupid witch to stop but for some reason, it wasn't working. He'd even made _direct_ eye contact with Nott and the man hardly noticed. It was strange. It was unusual. It was _**wrong**_. Tom had been stealing glances out of the corner of his eye at the girl, trying to figure how her presence at the table had suddenly made his entire group a gaggle of daft idiots – more so than usual. There was something that wasn't right, with this witch. Maybe she was part Veela? That might explain the way they were all practically slavering over her… he would need time to ponder it and find out _what_ it was. Until then, though… He took a solid, too-firm bite from the apple he'd been working on since the conversation had dissolved into some sort of mating display amongst his minions.

Mulciber, who had been so keenly hanging onto every word being spoken since Slughorn had drawn up to their table, saw the telltale signs of Tom's irritation peeking through his normal stony faced disposition. It was extremely odd, not to mention somewhat rare, to see Tom so visibly annoyed, and he'd already begun fearing for the new girl's well-being. Ever since he'd seen this one in the Alley, he'd been thinking about all sorts of lewd kinds of things he wanted to do to her and it had only gotten worse after she'd actually sat down – he couldn't very well do any of _that_ if she was a corpse then, could he?

Well, he supposed, he _could_, but that wasn't really his cuppa.

Naturally, being the valiant individual he was, Mulciber piped up before the witch could say anything else to irritate his Lord and took his turn at her attentions. "I'm sure you'll like it here very much Miss Callaghan. I know you have Tom here to help you about the school, but please feel free to call upon me at _any_ time."

Persephone smiled shyly at the boy, placing a few dainty fingers over her mouth until she finished chewing and swallowing a bite of toast. "Please, call me Persephone. The other makes me feel _terribly_ older than I am."

"Persephone," Mulciber repeated, "it really is a beautiful name. Like the goddess, right? It's _very_ fitting."

Tom snorted.

The whole table seemed to quiet at such and ungraceful noise coming out of the boy that typically operated with so much poise and propriety. Even Persephone, who'd 'only just met him' turned to look.

Tom didn't even seem to realize he had let out such an unremarkable sound until he felt the stares of everyone on him once again. He raised a brow and then shrugged, finishing his bite of apple. "Mulciber, perhaps you should cease your attempt at courting Miss Callaghan before you lodge your foot snugly down your throat."

Mulciber's complexion didn't seem to know if it wanted to pale or flush at the comment and he seemed utterly clueless.

"Is it _not_ an appropriate name?" This came from Lestrange who had been very actively _not_ participating up to that point.

Bolstered by the opportunity to embarrass both Mulciber and the little tart at his side, Tom shrugged again. "I suppose it all depends on the lady's take on it. If she enjoys the insinuation that she is the feared and dreaded Queen of the Underworld and delights in wearing the mantle of the goddess of death, queen of the shades, known for fulfilling all the wretched curses placed upon the souls of the dead, then I dare say she would be _most_ flattered. Tell me, _Miss Callaghan_," he addressed her formally in what some others might call a petulant manner, "_do_ you find yourself to be flattered by such an insinuation?"

When Tom glanced to his side again hoping to see the witch brimming with anger – or, at the very least, bubbling with mild irritation – he instead saw the beginnings of a smirk creeping onto her face. It was a much more genuine expression than he'd seen from her all morning and, as much as he loathed to admit, it surprised him.

Persephone caught Tom's eye and quirked an eyebrow of her own. She ran her finger along the edge of her goblet and, for the first time since she sat, focused her full attention on him. Her tongue ran along the fronts of her teeth before she smiled a smile that actually reached her eyes. "I suppose," she said softly, "it depends who is asking."

To say he was surprised _again_ at the change in demeanor would have been too strong a word; "intrigued" may have been better. Tom looked at her again and it was another different woman sitting before him. It wasn't the snotty witch who refused his assistance at the book store. It wasn't the naïve and nauseatingly daft flirt that he had the unfortunate task of carting around with him for a portion of the day. This woman – and he did mean "woman" – had a very different air about her all of a sudden.

"Me. What if I'm asking?" Mulciber interrupted whatever exchange was happening between his Lord and his target, caught in the embarrassment of Tom's offhanded dressing down.

Persephone's stare snapped to the large man, seeming to have almost forgotten he was there. When she spoke again, the flirtatious lilt to her voice had dissipated and all that was left was amused question. "You're Mulciber, right?" The man started to grin but before he could speak, she went right on. "_Mulciber._ God of the forge, fire, and in some cases, male fertility." Persephone took him in, as though seeing him for the first time since she actually joined them. "Tell me, Sir Mulciber, is _your_ name fitting as well?"

Mulciber blanched and looked at the others with clear question in his eyes but the only one that seemed to understand was Tom. Reluctantly, he looked at his leader who had plucked up his goblet and was chuckling behind the lip of it as he sipped.

Tom paused in his drink to lift his cup in a small toast to the witch at his side. "Club footed and weak with the fairer sex? Well, at least one of those, to be sure." He smirked at Persephone, acknowledging credit where credit was due and he watched those lips of hers curl into a smile and her eyes dart down and away as a peppering of color rose to her cheeks.

_Intriguing_, Tom thought, taking in this very different woman.

She was trouble, he'd decided, but he could not deny that she was, in fact, very "_intriguing"._


	8. Chapter 7 - Riddles (Book I)

**07 - Riddles**

April 1943

Intriguing, while a word that was certainly fitting to describe the strange young witch to a tee, was certainly not the only thing that was beginning to come to Tom's mind when he would think of Persephone Callaghan.

Intriguing.

Bossy.

Sarcastic.

Snarky.

Rude.

_Infuriating._

All were quite good at describing the girl.

Tasked with the unfortunate mission of getting her to and from Potions in the morning and Defense Against the Dark Arts after lunch every day, Tom was having to spend an utterly unreasonable amount of time with the wench.

For the day following their first classes back since the Easter holiday – the day after they'd been "reintroduced for the first time" – he'd tried to simply send her off on her way to the next class after Potions. That was met with a not quite scolding by Professor Slughorn.

"_I believe Miss Callaghan's next class is Transfiguration, Tom," _Slughorn had said,_ "Is that not on your way to your next as well? Perhaps you can see her to it, make sure she arrives soundly. As I'm to understand it, there are no moving staircases where she came from."_

_No,_ he'd thought irately. _No, it's not on my way at all. In fact, my next class is Herbology and very __**not**__ on the way._ Tom wasn't fooled by the genuine concern for the girl, though.

Slughorn had his eye on her. He very much wanted to collect her for his little shelf, but he had some kind of internal code for his prize pieces. He wouldn't influence them directly to pad marks or success or anything of the sort – not in the conventional sense in any case. To his convoluted mental rule set, influencing her success must have included the act of "making sure the transfer student actually gets to where they're needing to go" and, clearly, that was _right_ out. Slughorn could absolutely, positively, in no way, influence his next collection piece.

So he would have Tom do it instead.

So Tom did. And he was late to class.

Tom despised being late for anything.

The next day, he'd sent the witch off on the arm of Abraxas, who seemed quite eager to assist, much to Mulciber and Nott's jealous disappointment. Perhaps he'd cycle them out; let _them_ be late to class. He had appearances to uphold. He couldn't invite an entire mess of tardies to his name for nothing but a mildly attractive face and a girl that seemed like she consisted of three different personalities at least half the time.

The girl's marks really must have been phenomenal for the Professor to be slavering over her as he was.

If anyone asked him, he just didn't see it. She did decently well in potions, he could admit, but her casting in DADA was rubbish. Still, she was top of the class behind him and a clear leap and bound ahead of his own minions that had more than a few after hours chances to practice their wandwork, but she still wasn't _that_ great.

Not in _his_ opinion.

And honestly, if the girl had her hand in the air to try and answer questions any more often than she already did, he was certain her fingers would drop off from lack of circulation! Those she always somehow got right, even if her performance in class didn't always hold up to such a swotty image.

So, yes, Persephone Callaghan was indeed, "intriguing" but not nearly so much as she was "bothersome".

. . . . .

Another week or so later, Slughorn had them working in small groups.

Tom's typical group composition would consist of the boys that masqueraded as his equals during the course of a school day, and this session was truly no different – save for the addition of his very own personal thorn, Persephone Callaghan, of course.

Sometimes eccentric with his curriculum, Professor Slughorn had gotten away with the explanation that this assignment was a test to gauge where everyone was falling for the coming exams at the end of the term. Tom had a suspicious feeling that the man was fishing for opportunities for Miss Callaghan's supposed prowess to manifest itself. It was that, he was sure, that caused the man to assign them the rather difficult task of brewing a perfect Draught of Peace. There was no grade on this one, Slughorn had said, simply a test to identify where everyone stood for exam time.

Tom, his crew, and his tagalong were gathered around one of the large lab tables with a cauldron, a set of tools, and ingredients in front of each of them. Most of the boys were focusing hard on their texts to try and memorize the ever important order of the ingredients, Tom was leaning casually on his stool with his blazer neatly folded over his school bag nearby and his sleeves tightly cuffed to his elbows looking hard at Persephone. She had yet to bother even cracking open her book, and instead was leaned forward, hair tied out of her face by way of a blue and bronze striped hair scarf, and was busy knolling.

His eyes watched her arranging first her smattering of ingredients, then her brewing tools, and following that some of her writing supplies into neat, squared angles perfectly in the center of her workspace. The others didn't seem to notice or care necessarily; Tom raised a brow. "Miss Callaghan-" And she looked up to him with a mildly irate look at being disturbed. "-Professor Slughorn has ranted and raved quite a bit about your achievements in—I'm sorry, where did you say you were from?"

"New York," she said dully, a short quill rolling between her fingertips with its feathered tines tapping at her chin as though she was musing about its proper spot in the scheme of all the right angles of the world.

"Right. New York. So, I must say that, particularly after all of the Professor's praise, I am very eager to see what sort of education they provided you in-" He gave her another look. "-_New York._ Would you care to lead us in the instruction of brewing this draught?"

The question caused five stares to turn his way and an odd tension crept into the air among them. Tom never relinquished control, not truly. The fact he was asking for the witch to take charge, even though grades were of no matter in this instance, was less than savory.

_Let us see, Miss Persephone, what lies you have been spinning._

She smiled at him, the same kind of ones that never reached her eyes—the kind that all of his minions received. Persephone straightened and placed her quill down, though her hand twitched a little when she knocked one of the objects she'd aligned earlier out of place.

"I would not," she said plainly.

The bland refusal made those five sets of eyes zip back to the girl in astonishment.

_No one_ refused Tom Riddle.

They shot back to Tom now, waiting for his reply with obvious expectations.

Tom's head tilted back a hair and he recalled his suffocating distaste for this rude witch in that instant. "Oh, but Miss Callaghan, I am most astonished by the praise surrounding your abilities and think that our _team_ here could benefit from your experience. I _must_ insist."

His followers gaped.

Persephone nodded amicably and resumed her knolling, dismissing him with her body language before ever replying. "And, alas, I must continue to refuse."

The puckering of the boys' arseholes were nearly audible with the way Tom stiffened at her side.

The handsome, dark haired, dark eyed boy ran the tip of his tongue along the insides of his teeth and leaned forward, pressing his fingers to the table so firmly that the tips of them all turned white. Tom exercised an insurmountable amount of self-restraint as he opened his mouth to speak only for her to decide that would be the absolute perfect moment for her to continue in his stead.

"I believe, Mister Riddle, it would perhaps benefit one of the other members of our team more than I to have more of a hands-on role in the creation of the draught." Persephone sat up again, nudged the tip of one quill to be more neatly parallel to a cauldron stirrer, and smiled at Tom. "While I do appreciate your offer, it is still undetermined if I am to sit these exams at all." The witch sat primly on her stool then, slipped a finger carefully between sections of the back of her text and opened it exactly to the introductory page for brewing a Draught of Peace. Her other hand casually moved to cover that of the boy next to her, Tarquin Nott, and she turned that pretty smile onto him instead. He grinned when her lashes fluttered at him. "I would hate to take away the opportunity for any of these gentlemen to diagnose their strengths and problem areas. I feel it would be _most_ selfish of me if that were to occur, don't you agree?"

Tom Riddle stared hard at the side of her head, mentally ticking off the ways he would enjoy punishing her for her various infractions up to that point. He wasn't sure exactly how many seconds had passed but he knew he spent each and every one of them by breathing very methodically – in through the nose, out through the…clenched teeth. Finally, he swallowed and fixed her with his own charming show of teeth, the smooth timbre of his voice betraying nothing of his irritations. "Of course, Miss Callaghan. You bring up a valid point." He turned cold, hard eyes onto Rosier, ignoring how Nott was still grinning like an idiot under the girl's gaze, and rumbled out his next command through those still grit teeth, "Silvas, perhaps you can do the honours of leading us in our instructions today?"

The boy sputtered under the angry gaze of his Lord and dipped his head, flipping the pages clumsily back to the start of their section. "Y-yes Tom."

Tom's crew - plus Persephone - worked through their individual brews together with Silvas leading the instruction of order of ingredients. They were nearing the end of their period and their cauldrons were all full of shimmering white liquid while other tables had failed long ago in showers of angry colored sparks and pungent aromas. As other students were already working to clean up their spaces, Tom's table was putting the finishing touches on their brews. The earlier tension amongst the occupants of the table had been replaced with a distinct sense of intense concentration – between the boys anyway.

Tom and Persephone had already completed their potions and the turquoise liquid was cooling before bottling.

Persephone was clearing her space, preparing her vials when Tom leaned a bit over her cauldron and sniffed. She didn't shift her attention, merely spoke softly so that only the pair of them could hear, "May I help you, Mister Riddle?"

He shook his head and went about cleaning his own brewing area. "I suppose at least a portion of the rumours are true," he replied in a similarly low tone.

She snorted. "Rumours. Fact." Persephone shrugged as she began ladling. "Sometimes a person might find it surprising exactly how much truth exists in a rumour. It's really merely a fuzzy line between the two sometimes, don't you think?"

Tom was ladling as well, though the suspiciously knowing lilt to her question caused his eyes to tighten. "Perhaps…" was all he said and continued.

Any further discussion between them dropped off when a hurried curse came from beneath Mulciber's breath across the table, followed by the sure signs of burgeoning panic from Abraxas Malfoy to his left.

"Buggering hell! You were supposed to reduce the flames before adding the hellebore! Fucking—_shite_!"

Persephone and Tom's heads both snapped up from what they were doing to shift their attention to the now angrily roiling cauldron in front of the large boy. She gasped and immediately started shoving the boys away from the pot.

"Get away! Away from the table!"

Tom sneered at Mulciber who was too busy looking bug eyed at his potion, which was now sputtering and appeared as though it just _may_ be on the verge of exploding from the cauldron. "How many bloody times did Rosier read the last steps and you _still_—" he cut himself off, the growing frustration of the boy's incompetence taking the back seat to needing to find a neutralizing agent for the pot before the whole thing erupted in a fantastic display of third degree burns and unexpected shrapnel.

The classroom was already abuzz with growing excitement. Things so very rarely exploded at Tom Riddle's table and, while his housemates would never admit it to his face, they were quite eager to see it happen. Nobody else had gotten as far as they had with the draught, so their ill effects had been less than impressive. But to botch up the liquid right at the end after all those ingredients had been bubbling and brewing, well… they were _quite_ eager.

Tom's group had mostly dispersed and taken shelter from the unstable potion with Rosier running to retrieve Slughorn from the other end of the labs where he'd been closeted away organizing ingredients. Tom and Persephone, however, were in a frantic search to keep the concoction from exploding molten hot liquid on everyone that would rather spectate than do anything useful.

The two were combing through some of the nearby shelves frantically with nothing to show for it when the old portly Slughorn came crashing back into the main room calling for their attention and waving a pale greenish blue chunk of rock at them.

Persephone's wand flashed out with an _"Accio Brucite!"_ and the crystal came flying across the room at breakneck speed. She snatched it out of the air, waved her wand over it, and it splintered into dozens of smaller chunks. In one smooth movement, she dropped the broken Brucite into the cauldron and the liquid devoured it in its scalding waves. It lessened the draught's violent rolling, though not nearly enough, and the witch let out a funny squeaking noise before shielding herself behind a woefully bare arm.

With a raucous _**BOOM**_ the liquid spewed from the confines of the cauldron, showering the unoccupied half of the room with a burning hot putrescent green fluid. The other half of the room, however, appeared to be blissfully protected by a wall of textbooks, all floating side by side, opened so their covers dropped lengthwise and the warded, "splash resistant" covers of the potions books absorbed the brunt of it instead of the students.

Professor Slughorn, wand out and the apparent culprit of the makeshift shield, turned wide eyes to the pair of students closest to the explosion. "Mister Riddle! Miss Callaghan! Are you two alright?"

Persephone, trembling lightly from the surprising rush of adrenaline, cracked open her eyes and found that she'd been pressed tightly into a firm chest clothed in an obnoxiously spotless white Oxford. She swallowed and lifted her head from where she'd ended up in the arms of Tom Marvolo Riddle and blinked up at the boy who, for once since the first time she laid eyes on him, had let his mask slip around her to the point where, if she had not already known what this boy was to become, she would have been extremely unsettled.

Tom's eerie and venomous glare was fixed on Mulciber's brawny form who looked more than sheepish at botching an unmarked assignment. The boy looked terrified. Tom's hands were digging into Persephone's shoulders, the press of his wand jabbing into one of them where he was clenching her so tightly in the face of his barely contained temper that it was sure to leave a mark.

"I think we're fine Professor," the witch said shakily.

Hermione – for it was _Hermione_ and not her other persona now – found herself caught in her fascination of the young Dark Lord at such close study. She'd determined she had definitely become attuned to dark magic after so many years in captivity and there, in his strangling, harsh grip, Hermione could feel his energy licking at her skin with an intense familiarity. It made her throat constrict and something less than unpleasant tickle a distracting set of nerves throughout her body.

Standing, even in the circle of his unkind arms, staring up at the strong cut of his jaw, his dark eyes flaring, mouth that could spout honey and venom in the same breath turned up in a sneer, and his magic so tightly controlled yet somehow insatiably wild all at once, she understood in an instant how so many had fallen to his promises early on.

This little charismatic enigma of a young man was naturally _unnatural,_ and she would be a liar if she had said it wasn't mesmerizing.

Hermione observed as his anger towards his minion deflated and settled beneath those dark, murky orbs for later and she couldn't help but think that he'd at least had far more control over himself in his younger days than the insanity so many had witnessed after his "rebirth". Her immediate determination was that splitting one's soul still left a person a person where being reborn in a brand new body from within a vat of muck left them… decidedly less.

"Tom? My boy? You're alright?"

Slughorn's persistent questioning finally made Tom Riddle refocus his attention to the nearest thing – the small witch in his arms. When he glared down at her, his realized proximity to her startled them both. He quickly removed his hands from her shoulders and in doing so the reflexive shield he'd called forward flickered and faded with the barest glimmers of light.

"Fine, Professor. Thank you." Tom nodded to the barrier of books that was finally bobbing along back to their respective spots on the lab tables. He glanced over to his cronies who were doing their best to inspect what he was doing so close to Persephone Callaghan while at the same time attempting to disappear into thin air, or at least from his stare. He snorted, giving the witch the most even tempered look he could muster. "Maybe next time you should consider shielding yourself with more than just an arm and _dulcet_ cries as a backup plan instead of storing all your faith into a handful of crumbled stone."

Hermione took a step back and blinked at him – the long, slow kind – before she chortled in an almost mad fashion. He frowned at her mirth, and harder still when she pointed her wand in the direction of the pot and flicked her wrist to cancel the densely formed magical half dome she was able to get into place before everything had exploded.

Tom Riddle watched thickened globs of potion drip from the lab's table to its floor. He watched that along with a much smaller, much more concentrated version of the shield that he had snapped into place around them dissipate at the sound of her _finite_. His grimace deepened when he realized that while he had shielded mostly himself and also her, she had forced the concoction back in on itself with her magical "lid" giving the Brucite several seconds longer to be liquefied, consumed, and as a result, at least partially neutralize the volatile draught.

"Give that handful of stones a little more time to shatter and melt, Tom Riddle, and you may be surprised at the outcome." Hermione flashed him another small smirk, summoned her belongings to her side from their spot beneath ground zero and shouldered her bag.

Tom sneered but found himself drawn to the way the color in her haughty stare shifted when she spoke and he felt a chill wriggle its way down the length of his spine in a teasing caress. The thrum of her magic came knocking, sweeping over his arms, tapping at his door all warm and friendly and eager – and just like that it all fell away like someone had snapped a set of shutters closed with a foundation rumbling finality. With it went the entrancing color of her irises, and he saw the dark swirls of espresso and garnet bleed back into a warm, pleasant chocolate shade.

"Thank you," she said stiffly, awkwardly, blinking several times before looking away. "For the gesture."

Tom Riddle watched her leave even as people were coming back to him now. They gathered nearby, they were talking to him, either fawning over his bravery or were his followers begging for just a light punishment later for embarrassing him.

Whatever the hell they were talking about, he really couldn't be bothered to care.

_Distracting_, Tom thought. _Distracting is also a good word._


	9. Chapter 8 - Mortal Weakness (Book I)

**Chapter 08 – Mortal Weakness**

May 1943

Several more days had passed since the accident in potions and Hermione had been observing the boys and Tom more closely ever since.

She had done her research on each family line she thought she would encounter there in the past, tried to shrug off what she knew of some of them from what she'd already experienced of their descendants and managed to still be surprised at meeting them in the flesh. It was such an odd thing to see the ancestor of someone you recalled pushing you down and shoving past you in the corridors as the same age as their prattish little clones. Integrating herself into the boys' daily lives had always been the plan from day one – it was the only way to ensure that she would be close enough to the events that mattered when they happened. But that was easy. The part she was struggling with was insinuating herself in the lives of her female dorm mates.

Despite her young body, she was working well off of her older self's memories and experiences. The household she had been gifted to by a much older Dark Lord had caused her to develop an unfortunate, though still useful, set of skills when dealing with these boys; the fact that she was still terribly awkward when it came to speaking with fellow witches regardless of her age, though, that remained a sad truth.

Hermione watched from her corner of the common room, curled up on a large plush pillow with one of the tomes her older self had left her nestled in her lap. The rest of her housemates were making their way down to the Great Hall for dinner but she just observed, seeing how the already somewhat introverted Ravenclaws hovered further in their even more selective cliques – especially those girls.

"Callaghan, you coming?" A reasonably handsome boy Hermione had come to know as Stefan Hilliard stopped by her corner, flashing her a lopsided grin.

She gave him one of the smiles that she'd been supplying everyone who engaged her and shook her head. Fishing an apple out of her satchel, she held it up to him with a grin. "Snaked it at lunch, I'm good with this, but thank you Stefan."

The boy scoffed and crouched down so they were eye level. Stefan reached out to snatch the fruit and rolled it in his palm a few times. "Snaked it from a bunch of snakes. Really, Callaghan, I would stay away from them. I know the Headmaster and Professor Slughorn have assigned their precious little Riddle to watch over you, but I don't see the need. You're familiar enough with the layout of things now that you can get to and from classes without them. You don't need to sit with them anymore." The boy replaced Hermione's apple and turned a much more charming but only slightly less pompous smile on her now. "And if you still need anything, I'll be happy to show you around."

Hermione's smile shifted into one that was half-bashful, half-interested, and expertly practiced. "Thank you Stefan." She blushed prettily at him and lied flawlessly. "Tom and I have been partnered up on some late term projects though, so I really _do_ need to sit with them. He's dreadfully hard to catch otherwise and, call me crazy, but I don't get the feeling that anyone at our table really cares for him."

Stefan shook his head with a wan smile. "You're not wrong about that. I'm sorry you've managed to get mixed up with him at all. Him and his kind are nothing but trouble."

Her eyes flashed so quickly at the term _"his kind"_ that she was sure the boy missed it, but she ducked her head anyway. She masked the reflexive irritation in her voice with meek inflection instead. "They seem alright to me. Tom and the boys—"

"The boys?"

Hermione nodded. "His friends. Abraxas, Silvas, Tarquin—"

The boy scoffed again, finally pushing to his feet and brushing off some lint from his trousers. "I'm not sure I would call any of the people that hang around Tom Riddle like those lot do his 'friends'. Be careful around them, Callaghan," the last was said with more earnest pleading. "Nothing good ever comes out of that house and those people." With that he bid her farewell with a vague promise that he'd bring her back something more substantial than an apple.

Hermione waited until the wizard had cleared off and the stragglers were gone as well before she dropped the phony expression she'd been sporting. With a roll of her eyes, she shut her tome and settled more comfortably into her pillow to stare hard out at the rolling Scottish countryside and its low hanging sun.

"'His kind'. 'Those people'. Ignorant arse." Hermione found she cared very little about the fact that Hilliard's observations were actually spot on in regards to Tom Riddle being trouble. What, perhaps, irritated and captured her attention much, much more was the prejudice based on association in general.

_It's fine,_ she thought. _There'll be no room for that sort of thinking when I'm done here…_

**. . . . .**

"She wasn't there again," Abraxas grumbled to the boy at his side.

Lestrange looked decidedly unsympathetic and said nothing in reply as he sat heavily in one of the posh armchairs of their common room.

"She's not come to dinner for days! I was going to ask her—"

"Malfoy, I do hope you weren't going to see fit to give the Callaghan girl even _more _of an excuse to hang around." Tom looked up from his reading, the extent of his annoyance clear in his narrowed eyes. He had not gone to dinner either. _He_ was too close to finding the Chamber.

Abraxas shrank back at the sound of his Lord, having been so immersed in his pity party that he hadn't even noticed him sitting there. He held his apology until the trail of other students returning from the Hall had scattered, knowing better than to exist outside of class uninvited and in the same space as Tom Riddle.

Tom waved it off and allowed Malfoy and the others to sit while he finished reading through a passage and scribbled some notes in a small black leather diary. His crew sat awkwardly – except for Lestrange, who was quite relaxed and stretched out in his seat waiting for Tom to finish what he was doing and either give them the clear to chat or dismiss them from his presence. The boy in question tapped his quill to his lips thoughtfully a handful of times before scribbling some more and then finally shutting the diary and looking up.

"I must admit, Abraxas that I am wholly confused as to what you see in the witch." Tom stacked his books on a small table next to his chair and rested his chin on a palm, looking speculatively at the other boy. "Might you be so kind as to enlighten me?"

Malfoy blanched. As it happened, many of his thoughts about Persephone Callaghan were more than a little impure and Tom very much disliked when their talk of girls and women became too…vulgar. He hesitated with his reply. He hesitated so much that Tom quirked a brow.

"Come now," Tom taunted, "is Miss Callaghan due to be the next_ Mrs. Malfoy_? What is so entrancing about this woman that the lot of you have become gooey-eyed buffoons rather than the pick of the proverbial litter? Come, speak freely. What about her has you fawning all over her?"

Abraxas curled further into his seat, going from a pale white to an embarrassed red. He searched for an acceptable answer for his master but was coming up blank. All he could see in his mind were the assortment of ways that he wanted to ravage the witch.

Tom snorted but heard a small voice from his side. "What?" he said, turning eyes on Tarquin Nott.

The boy shrank into his spot on the sofa as well. "Good hair," he repeated "She's got…good hair."

"_Gorgeous_ hair," Mulciber agreed.

"Pretty teeth," Silvas added in a tone – more to his fellow peons than his Lord – that suggested it should have been the _first_ reason they spouted.

Lestrange snorted. "What is she? A dog?"

Tom laughed at that, sudden and loud and startling. "Well, she _is_ a bitch."

A degree of tension lessened in the room at that and they all laughed with their master, even Malfoy. Tom pushed off from his seat and collected his things, making to retire to his room but pausing at the hall to the dorms.

"Court her as you will, gentlemen. It is not my duty to be your mother. But do not continue to let your performance slip or bring her around me in excess lest I neuter each and every one of you. I am too close to the Chamber now to be bothered by a leggy, swotty bitch with 'gorgeous hair', 'pretty teeth', and 'nice skin' to be sniffing about."

With that he turned and left, leaving the boys to their own devices for the rest of the evening. Lestrange followed shortly after like the loyal hound he was.

Several minutes ticked by before Abraxas turned to his mates again. "Did anyone mention her skin?"

Nott's expression changed from one of fierce concentration to one of shock as he replayed the conversation in his head. "No. Nobody."

"Or her legs?"

Rosier looked at Mulciber and frowned. "No."

**. . . . .**

Hermione was reading, as per usual, at the Ravenclaw table for breakfast when an unwelcome gaggle of girls took it upon themselves to surround her. She tensed imperceptibly, hand resisting its twitch towards her wand and she reminded herself that this was part of the plan. The group of them may have been unexpected at that exact moment, but…

"Persephone," a girl named Sara started them off, "I just heard you've been working with Tom Riddle in class—"

"You've _just_ heard? Have you been absent for the past month?" Hermione replied dryly, unable to stop herself. She winced and reminded herself she needed these stupid girls to actually like her.

"What's he like?" Sara continued with no sign she'd even heard the other girl speak.

Hermione blinked. "Well…"

"We heard that he saved you from a potions explosion!" Another girl, Michelle, said.

"That was last week—"

"He shielded you with his body!" Sara again.

"What was that like?" A new girl, Olga- no, Ophelia, Olinda? Hermione couldn't remember – asked.

_O, her name was O for all she cared._

"It was…"

_Here is the chance,_ she thought ruefully, looking from one obsessed trollop to the next. Give them something juicy and they'll come back, time and time again. They obviously didn't actually feel like she was some kind of threat to their impossible attempts to lure the future Dark Lord into their spidery clutches otherwise they wouldn't be nearly so friendly – that much she _did_ understand about other witches. No, they wanted an inside scoop to use for their own dastardly plans.

"Yes?" O urged her on with eyes wide and set on her.

_Like a predator._

The thought of being anything "lesser" made Hermione's lips twitch towards a sneer; she stifled it, but barely. "It was me, actually."

Sara was confused. "What was you?"

"That saved him."

O balked. "_You_? Excuse me if I find that rather difficult to believe."

_Ah. There are the claws._

"_Everyone_ knows that Tom Riddle is at the top of that class—he's the top of the whole _year!_ I highly doubt that you were responsible for saving him from anything." O said smugly.

"Maybe responsible for the explosion," Michelle added slyly and they all giggled in Hermione's face.

"Actually, that would be Mulciber." Hermione stated coolly, shutting her tome and rising with it tucked under one arm. "Botched up near the end of a Draught of Peace and nearly scalded the entire class with the explosion. While I do understand that it's difficult for you to wrap your mind around it, believe me when I say, it was _me_ that saved him from any unpleasant effects."

Hermione was already walking away, intent on leaving them and heading perhaps to the library before first bell when O snorted in a most unladylike fashion with more to say.

"That's just ridiculous." The snotty girl reached out to take some toast points from the rack in front of her and shot Hermione a stupidly smug look. "And that's not what Liliandra said happened at _all_."

The witch paused in her stride, book tucked under her arm, bag hanging off her shoulder, and her wand clutched in a tight grip that not a one of the silly girls at the table understood was particularly dangerous for each and every one of them. Hermione felt her magic spark through her veins at the juvenile cattiness that she'd never managed to deal with very well in other females, but she worked on tamping it back down.

In that same moment she felt eyes on her. Someone was staring hard at the back of her neck. Hermione was unsurprised to see Tom Riddle had picked his head up from his own book and had turned a quizzical look in her direction as if searching out a strange sound or scent in the air. She pushed the implications of what he was looking for to the back of her mind in lieu of a more favorable thought for the time being.

Hermione turned her attention back to the snarky witch. "Well. . ." She opened her mouth and made a strained face as if she were trying _very_ hard to remember who it was she was speaking to.

"_Olive,"_ the girl said, clearly offended.

"Well, _Olive,_ perhaps you should consult with Liliandra as to how it felt to be held by Tom Riddle then if she's got all the answers." Hermione hiked her bag strap higher on her shoulder and gave the witch a pleasant smile before leaning in so only she could hear. "His hands are _much_ rougher than you would think, by the way. Chafes the skin."

Hermione straightened, leaving Olive sputtering, unable to answer the other girls' questions as she sauntered over to the Slytherin table.

Tom had been watching her exchange with some interest and had seen her coming from a long way away. When she neared he quirked a brow in question but rose from the bench. The other boys realized she'd come to join them earlier than usual and did the same. They waited until she was mostly settled before re-seating themselves and Tom looked her over with his typical thinly veiled distaste.

"Trouble in paradise?" Tom sipped his cocoa.

"You have a fan club, Mister Riddle." Hermione said flatly, reaching for a huge, flaky croissant and scanned the table for the orange marmalade. "May I?"

Tom plucked the jar from his left and passed it over, noting she was much more polite that morning than she ever was at lunch or in class. "Which ones?" He asked and she shrugged, mumbling something about a blonde.

He'd not been paying very much attention to who she'd been conversing with when he had felt a crackle of magic buzzing through the air. He was certain it had come from her, produced by her ire, but now that she was so close he couldn't feel it anymore. It was…odd. She still appeared very put out by the other witch but now, barely a metre away, she was fuming and that magical trace was all but gone.

Tom nodded his head towards the Ravenclaw table. "Nott, who was she speaking to?" He motioned somewhere in the location he'd spotted her before. "Somewhere there."

It took the wizard a second, then, "Olive Hornby?"

A pulse of that same magic from before flared at the name. It was fleeting, merely a teasing notion that it existed before it fell away again and both Tom Riddle and Rophelius Lestrange looked at the witch with sudden interest.

"Hornby?" Hermione asked, still focusing on spreading the marmalade over her pastry. "Did you say Hornby?"

"Yeah." At Tom's disapproving look, Tarquin cleared his throat and spoke more clearly and properly. "Yes. I mean, _yes_."

Tom watched the girl's mouth twitch into a smirk, then a smile, then disappear behind the pretense of partaking in her far too sugary breakfast item. He found himself curious but chose a less obvious question. "And what did you say to Miss Hornby?" Tom watched Persephone's eyes slide up to his and saw again the way the colors shifted in the strangest of patterns.

"I told her your hands were very rough."

His surprise did not even budge his expression, though he was weary of whatever rumors the girl had taken to spreading about the two of them – Merlin knew there were already some that had started that he had to squash the moment he'd heard. "In what context?"

Hermione heard the threat beneath the words and smiled the rare kind that met her eyes. "I left that part up to her imagination."

Tom's followers went wide eyed at the admission that Persephone Callaghan had even dared to hint that anything unsavory had occurred between herself and their Lord without his explicit permission to do so – or, the even less likely scenario, there actually having been something to allude to. They waited with bated breath for the inevitable order to dispose of the witch for sullying his name.

"It could be why she was nearly choking on her gossiping tongue when I left her."

When he merely snorted, raised his cup at the witch, and resumed drinking his cocoa, the dread at their end of the table dissipated into something a bit less volatile and a good bit stranger.

**. . . . .**

It had been nearly a month since Tom had begun his chauffeur assignment to Persephone Callaghan and by that point he was _quite_ over the whole damned thing.

The task had been so very daunting at first he had tried to make it a game: keep Slughorn happy all while still keeping her out of his hair. That plan hadn't backfired, per se, but the latter half of it consisted of shoving her off on his gang who, for the most part, was eager to take on the assignment in his stead.

Their continued enthusiasm about being near the girl was beginning to grate on his patience.

They were thankfully far more afraid of him than they were enamored with her, so the discussions about her aesthetics had stopped in the evenings all together. It gave him a great deal more peace to work in while identifying the entrance to his ancestor's Chamber of Secrets, though it was obvious by their weak Quidditch talk and evasive girl talk that they were hard pressed to find other subjects.

_Honestly,_ Tom thought, _she's not even all that attractive._

He made a mental note to investigate further into the hold this siren had over his men after he located the entrance. For the time being it was harmless, but he had suspicions that it was unnatural – much like the source of intrigue herself. Persephone Callaghan was a strange girl in a strange situation, one, he noted, that she still avoided the details of when it came up, and there was simply no other explanation to why she'd captured the others in her thrall.

Tom himself had been blissfully immune to whatever spell she'd cast, of course, for she'd not occupied nearly so many of his thoughts outside of class. . .

**. . . . .**

Tom was jotting down notes in his diary the morning after Persephone had decided to join them at breakfast and his blissful escape from her presence was cut even shorter when she joined them again.

"Morning Persephone!" Abraxas intoned brightly.

"Good morning," the girl replied groggily but with one of those infuriatingly fake smiles.

Those smiles bothered Tom. As someone that sported his own slew of faked expressions towards his peers and professors, he was greatly bothered by them. He wasn't sure what he disliked the most, but that his followers ate them up so easily was most assuredly a portion of it.

Still smiling, she scrubbed at her eyes and greeted the rest of them in turn, coming to rest on their leader last. The smile faded and he received a different look, similar to the one of distaste he always made sure to provide to her. "Good morning, Mister Riddle."

"A morning it is, Miss Callaghan. A 'good' one is still left to be seen."

"The day looks bright so far with you joining us here this morning," Silvas piped up merrily.

Tom controlled the icy look he felt like tossing the boy's way and observed the witch and her practiced giggle.

"It's a bit early for that, don't you think?" Nott said. "Let her get something in her system first to heave up."

Persephone's hand covered Nott's in that same way she did in potions sometimes and she shushed him. "_Tarquin_, he's just being polite. Something you could apparently benefit from."

The boy grinned lopsidedly at her attention but before he could speak Abraxas hissed in pain from her other side. She jolted in her seat and looked to him instead, only to see him clutching a cloth to his hand. "Abraxas! What on earth—"

He hissed again when she pulled the cloth away and saw spots of blood. "Don't worry. Cut myself is all."

The witch clucked her tongue at him and reached for a goblet of water and went about dabbing the food bits out of the cut with a dampened napkin from where he'd apparently been sawing some fat buttery pastry in half in his palm. "Cut _away_ from yourself. _AWAY._ Honestly, how can you be so bloody brilliant in potions and so awful at _bread_?"

Tom sipped his morning beverage watching how Abraxas gave Nott a triumphant sneer overtop the girl's head while she tended to his hand. He watched her patch up the boy manually rather than magically with idle curiosity even as his irritation intensified.

Between the boys trying their best to come up with new ways of insinuating themselves into her knickers and own her flirtatious behavior - which, he observed, never included him – it was more than enough to further grate on one's nerves. If he had not been so well known for diverting the school's doe-eyed witches' like Olive Hornby and her crew away from himself, people might simply think he was jealous of the girl's lack of interest towards him.

It wasn't that, clearly.

It was the _inconsistency_.

It wasn't as though he sought to be included in all this courting nonsense. He simply found it so very peculiar that she would continue to throw herself at his minions, even going so far as to sometimes try to engage _Lestrange_, yet would hardly initiate any sort of conversation that didn't include course work with _him_.

He preferred it that way, though he couldn't deny his budding curiosity over what apparently made him a non-target. He'd always been the unobtainable ever since he began attending at Hogwarts - dashingly handsome and too interested in his studies for extracurricular play. He'd gotten quite used to it attracting hordes of witches at times, especially when they learned of his orphan status. So many had seemed to play with the concept of _fixing _him, as though he had some sort of broken wing. It left him quite the catch in the eyes of the female population of the school and he wasn't sure why he'd been dropped off of this witch's sights entirely.

Tom was completely uninterested in her, of course, but that never mattered with any of the others. Why was this one so different?

These thoughts vexed him, made him frown.

_Was his mask slipping?_

He was sure he had it firmly in place, but what if he was mistaken? The girl was still coming around so she didn't appear to be frightened of him – yet.

_Would her apparent lack of interest in him throw a spanner in the works?_

If anyone noticed her bland and resistant attitude towards him, if she somehow truly sullied his image by hacking away at the pedestal he'd created for himself, it could ripple throughout the masses in ways more damning than not being able to get a date for Slughorn's foolish parties.

Tom couldn't afford to botch such a simple thing this early into his plans. He was so close to implementing stage one…no, he just couldn't afford that at all.

He would get everything back on track, starting today.

"Miss Callaghan, you look different this morning."

Persephone was in the middle of bandaging Abraxas' palm with her hair scarf when he'd addressed her. A glare emerged from what was previously a very easy going expression; a suspicious glare fixed wholly on _him_. "Oh?"

Her cold, overtly cautious reply made his eye tick but he smiled – one of his warmest ones – and picked through his recollection of words exchanged about the girl from the others. "Have you done something with your hair today?" He motioned to his own head in a circling gesture that insinuated her wild mane. "Your skin perhaps? It's glowing this morning."

The table immediately went silent.

If Nott or Mulciber, hell, if _Rophelius_ had even said such a thing, Tom didn't think the air would have gone so still, yet it did. They were all staring at him with a range of shock and awe to – Persephone's reaction – a narrowed and still cold looking glare.

When she looked at him like that, he could see the swirls of color in her eyes.

It was as though she was picking him apart right there on the spot and, what's more, she was still doing it blatantly for him AND his followers to see. If he'd been a meeker man without an agenda he may have been intimidated by it. Being Tom Riddle, he just stared back, waiting for her to say something. He would squash those ripples, but it had to be done methodically; he had to play as though she had some sort of ground to bicker upon before he could work her over.

"Tell me, Tom," Persephone intoned flatly, "do the girls like Olive Hornby just throw themselves at you because of your admiration of their 'skin' or do you have to get particularly _naughty_ and tell them how good their teeth are and comment on the degree of sheen to their dress flats?"

Rosier shrank in on himself at the bit about teeth and, if his other minions had not been as well trained as they were, he was sure that a nervous gasp would have rolled through their portion of the table. Tom had at least learned more of what to expect in her by then and managed to restrain his annoyed tick at her cheek. He sipped from his cup once more and went about cutting a piece of ham very precisely with a shrug.

"I do not converse with girls, Miss Callaghan, only women. That said, if I were to say that I find your teeth quite pearlescent and straight and your dress flats have a more than adequate sheen than your juvenile classmates, in _addition_ to your 'nice skin', would that make you so inclined to 'throw yourself at me' as you say?" He took a bite of ham off his fork, chewing silently and without breaking eye contact while managing to look entirely unimpressed with whatever response she may have.

Persephone appeared surprised at the odd compliment and somehow flattering implication behind his remark. Her tongue had darted out to whet her lips but she'd turned back to tying her scarf around Malfoy's palm with what Tom was very certain was a flush creeping into her cheeks and murmured, "No. I think _my_ reaction would be something very different, Mister Riddle."

Tom watched her avoid his stare, concentrating on her task, and smirked with amusement. So perhaps Miss Callaghan wasn't as immune to his charming status as he initially thought.

_Good. I'll keep you in your place with honey then, Miss Callaghan. Just until I have finished my task and have more time to properly deal with you._

Upon finishing bandaging up Malfoy, an unsettling quiet was thick in the air once more and Persephone was preoccupied with prodding at her plate.

Tom found it to be more than a relief to have her finally cease her flirtations with the others in his presence and almost merrily went about consuming the remainder of his breakfast.

Of course there was simply no way he would have noticed the devious smile creeping onto her face at his display of smugness.

* * *

**A/N:** Double update! What does it mean?! :) I forgot to drop in a quick thanks to everyone that has followed and favorited this story! I appreciate the support in my new little branch of fandom. Pretty sure Tomione has become my OTP in all honesty.

Unrelated, I'm on Tumblr now apparently. I lemming'd after Colubrina and found it full of pretty pictures of pretty people doing unsavory things! Just a warning: I am dreadfully bad at...the internet. Don't expect anything aside from nonsensical malarkey from me there, but if you have questions, it's probably easier to get me there than here. Link's in my profile. Thanks all!


	10. Chapter 9 - Untethered (Book I)

**09 – Untethered**

May 1943

Persephone had become something of a routine fixture at the Slytherin table for meals. Tom's gang was still elated by this fact, minus Lestrange, and Tom had become accustomed to her presence.

Tom had taken to paying the witch at least one compliment a day, which had two enjoyable effects: the first was that she had stopped most of her blatant fawning over the others after a few days of her apparently capturing his attention; and the second was that he heard even _less_ about the annoying witch from the boys. He was pleased with the ultimate lack of effort involved in actually tranquilizing the embarrassing display in which both sides had been engaging, and had almost come to look forward to the effects he had on them all.

_This_ was the kind of power he would wield over _everyone_ someday. A simple word from their Dark Lord and all of the world would tremble or coo or riot at his command. It _was_ intoxicating.

Tom thought he might experiment that day and pay his compliments early on and note the effects they had on everyone involved. Heck, he was in such a brilliant mood that morning after narrowing down the Chamber's entrance to three possible spots in the school the night before that he thought he might even pay her _two_ that day.

Therein really lay the problem, however, seeing as she'd still not arrived to breakfast.

Tom glanced over at the Ravenclaw table to see if perhaps he'd missed her, but when her big bushy head was nowhere to be seen he frowned.

Much like himself, the witch was never late to anything. Every morning and lunch and dinner – when she decided to show up in the first place – she'd been precisely where she was supposed to be when she was supposed to be there. The fact that she was late made him curious as to what exactly was keeping her. With the thought lingering in the back of his mind, he went back to reading through a tome he'd snuck free from the restricted section to get a jump on phase two.

It was nearly time for first bell when Persephone finally joined them.

The witch sat so heavily in the open spot at Tom's side so unexpectedly that he was almost caught off guard. At the very least, he had no time to get up before she was already _right there._

Tom blinked at her strangely, taken aback by the fact the girl nearly snuck up on him, and looked her over. She was clad in her uniform as usual, though her hair was all pinned up atop her head with sticking charms and her tie was loosened to the neckline of her pinafore with her blouse unbuttoned just as low. The girl was rubbing at her neck with a grimace making an occasional pained groan.

A quick glance around him saw the others were staring at her half in shock, half in hunger. He found this more irksome than usual that morning. Leave it to this girl to knock his plans.

"Looking a bit rough there, Callaghan." _No compliment for you this morning…bloody witch._

Persephone gave him a _look_ out of the corner of her eyes and it surprised him.

There was a warning in that look of hers as well as something darker than he'd pegged her able to muster. More curiously, at his words, he felt the crackle of her magic filling the air between them. Judging by the rustling and shifting at the table, he wasn't the only one that felt it.

"Rough night," she croaked out. At Tom Riddle's quirked eyebrow, she amended, "I fell asleep in the common room. Piles of down filled pillows sound like a brilliant idea until you fall asleep in a puddle of them with no back or neck support."

Malfoy grimaced. "No one woke you? Not even one of your house's Prefects? That's part of their job-"

"Yes, well, Ravenclaws may be smart but they're right arseholes," she snapped out harshly while scooping a pile of eggs onto a plate to inhale before Potions.

Tom smirked at her language while some of the others gaped in shock. He nudged the rack of toast towards her even as she reached for it – as was next on her routine. "Good to know that Slytherin house is not the only one thought to bear that mantle."

Persephone snorted, spreading orange marmalade over everything with a deeply creased brow. "Shrewd, ambitious, _inspired_, those are mantles I would give your house. Arseholes? Send that one straight to the birds. They speak constantly out of both sides of their beaks if it will give them a leg up on their academic success."

He listened to her grumbling with growing amusement, propped his chin in a palm and watched the witch eat angrily. Her lips pursed in anger between bites and she huffed, looking to be thinking very hard about something; his smirk grew. "And what, pray tell, dear Miss Callaghan, did you do to draw their ire?"

She finished chewing and shrugged innocently in answer to his question. "I _might_ have ousted several of them out of their top spots in class."

Tom Riddle laughed. "Of course you did."

Persephone blinked at him, wide eyed, at the volume of his laughter and the way he was looking at her with actual real mirth in his stare. She flushed lightly and at the warning bell, rose while fixing her collar and tie.

He did the same, waiting for her to finish before making a sweeping gesture for her to begin their trek down to the dungeons. "Perhaps they have something there. If I knew that keeping you up late revising and simply not waking you for class would ensure my number one spot, I might look into it as well."

She scoffed, nose turned up as they hurried down far too many stairwells. "No you wouldn't. You would just_ be_ better and beat me legitimately instead of resorting to petty tactics to compensate for laziness or lack of skill."

Something glinted in his eyes at that.

"You're quite right about that one, Miss Callaghan," he murmured though she was too preoccupied with her purposeful strides. "Quite right."

**. . . . .**

Midday came and it seemed that Persephone's day had not been getting any better.

She was chewing very carefully on several bites of a cucumber sandwich, lips pursed and her hand turning the pages of their history book with sharp precision. The girl hadn't flirted at all today, just eaten, revised, or worked through class. Her sassy tongue hadn't even truly lashed out at Tom _once_ that day.

It was almost concerning to Tom Riddle-almost. For the most part, he continued to be curious about what truly had made the witch so cross. He didn't believe just letting her sleep in for the day was it.

Tom munched on his own sandwich, chewing thoughtfully before swallowing and finally speaking. "Miss Callaghan, pardon me for asking, but _what_ – as they say – has your wand in a knot?"

Persephone stopped chewing and gaped, not very sure at all that she'd heard him correctly. "_Excuse_ me?"

He reached across the table and snapped her book shut, nearly clipping her fingers in the process, and she turned that irate look on him now. "This-" He motioned to her. "-what is this?"

She scoffed, tugged her book out of his reach, and opened it right back up to where she was before. "I've no idea what you're talking about."

"_Really?_ Because I think you do, actually. You are not your typical snarking self today and I must admit that I am curious as to what has put you in such a foul disposition."

"Your compliments are off today, Riddle," she snapped coldly.

Tom's brows went up at the sheer ferocity behind the words. Normally, anyone that spoke to him with such disregard would find themselves in the hospital wing by way of unfortunate casting mishap, but he continued to find this tone on Persephone Callaghan to be intriguing.

The witch was not stupid, that much he'd confirmed-at least not in the book smart sense-though she did not appear to be devoid of common sense either. The fact that she snapped at him so often either meant she actually _was _daft in those regards or she simply was not afraid of him. He had a sneaking suspicion that it was the latter, and that concept intrigued him even more.

He reached for her book once more and when she tugged it farther away he rose from his seat and merely snatched the entire thing from her grasp, holding it out of _her_ reach on his side of the table. Persephone rose in a flash and he saw her hand twitch towards her wand, but she stopped herself. Instead she held it out towards him, an entirely too tense posture causing her petite frame to go rigid. The color in her eyes flared and he tilted his head, watching it swirl and war with the shades there.

"My. Book."

Tom inspected the way she trembled as the words grit through her teeth and there it was again-that flare of energy rolling over his skin. It made his flesh prickle in the same fashion that opening a new tome from the deepest recesses of the library did – _not_ unpleasantly.

He held her glare a moment longer before he nodded and smiled at her. "My apologies, Miss Callaghan." Tom placed the book, spine first, into her palm and cupped her hand with his own to help her support it. He dragged his fingertips from her wrist down to her knuckles, watched her throat bob and the fire in her gaze lessen. "It was an attempt to lessen your frustrations, not intensify them."

Persephone's jaw clenched. "You know little about women if _that_ was your intention, Tom Riddle."

He smirked. "Perhaps you will see fit to assist me at a later time then."

Her mouth dropped open slightly in surprise but she yanked her hand, and her book, away, turning from them all and storming off somewhere _not there_ for the rest of the lunch hour.

Tom waited until she was out of sight before sitting back down and resuming his lunch.

"…my Lord?"

He shook his head at the uneasy question from Tarquin Nott regarding the witch's fate after speaking to him in such a manner. "Leave her be for now."

**. . . . . **

_Cast, cast, parry, parry, block._

_Block, block, cast, cast, cast._

_And again._

The "practical dueling" practice was so mind numbingly boring for all involved, but particularly Tom Riddle. He went through the motions. He danced the dance. He tried desperately not to nod off, especially as the professor had stepped out a moment and he no longer even had her annoying voice to pretend to be attentive for.

As Tom parried another series of harmless hexes sent his way by his dutiful, albeit awful, little partner – _who,_ he mused, _should be sorry to call themselves Slytherin_ – he dully fantasized about actually being able to practice his full range of spells on a live person. He had a few nasty curses that he tried to alter into something decidedly nastier, but he needed practical testing. Curses and binding spells. When he found the Chamber and opened it, he needed to have a backup plan in place, just in case the legendary creature within was more ornery than anticipated. He had ideas. He had theories, but he needed to practice first to be safe_; _self-preservation was key.

_Block, block, cast, cast, cast._

He _would_ practice sometimes of course, for he was one of the few that had any idea of the Room of Requirement's existence, but even his minions left much to be desired. Not a one of them posed any significant challenge to his skills, only to his patience. At the very least, they were gifted enough in the Dark Arts to hover around the upper end of the class. Lestrange was the most talented of the set of them in dark magic and he'd been the closest to his own marks for the longest while – that is, until that boggling Persephone Callaghan had joined them all and somehow knocked Lestrange clean out of the running only to nip at _his_ heels.

_Persephone Callaghan._

Tom watched her as he dueled his own housemate. She was a live one today, still seemingly frustrated from whatever happened earlier or the evening prior to set the tone. They were set in pairs for dueling, switching at the sound of a timer the professor had started at the beginning of class. So far, they were about halfway done. He'd watched her performance from the very beginning and was quite looking forward to his round with her.

She was flawless in timing and execution for once, which was a far cry from the other practice sessions that had been held previously. Normally, Persephone would hesitate or stumble at least part of the way through drills and he'd been thoroughly unimpressed with her since their start of term. Today, however, today the witch was on a warpath.

Her gaze was focused off somewhere in the distance and not at all looking at her classmate at any given time. The students that had the unfortunate status of not being considered for any parts of his circle with their piss poor grasp of the Dark Arts were trembling behind their shields and shuddering with every parry from the sheer force of the power behind her blows. When it came to his chosen - his inner circle - he was pleased to see them similarly surprised by the ferocity of her spells.

The timer buzzed again and Tom changed partners, watching between his own drills with increased interest as Persephone now faced Rophelius Lestrange.

The large man sneered openly at her, an expression that was not actually uncommon to be shared between the two, but today… today it made the air ignite. They bowed to each other and not even halfway to their guarded stances, Lestrange had flung his first cast.

Persephone's wrist twitched down and the spell shattered on a brightly shimmering dome.

Then again, but the moment Rophelius' spell hit, Persephone stepped forward and launched a stunner, her shield and his spell still fizzling into nothingness as she moved to the offensive. The change was so quick that he couldn't move in to parry and had to erect his own shield instead, breaking the pattern of their drills.

Tom watched with fascination the way the small witch pressed in on Lestrange. It was as though she were truly on the attack, on a battlefield, swishing and striking so hard at the man that the wood of her wand whistled through the air. If he looked hard enough, he would almost swear that her hair frizzed even more with the power gathering around her dainty body. Rophelius was standing his ground, but barely, hunkered behind his shield as hex after hex pounded into it with more than a playful tenacity.

And then the buzzer sounded again.

Persephone froze at the sound, wand arm back and ready to launch but a tension released from her body all at once and she never released the last spell. Her shoulders twitched and she shook her head, refocused her gaze on Rophelius and from even his distance away, Tom saw her swallow and mouth something that appeared to be an apology.

The rest of the class moved to change partners, but Tom saw Rophelius approach the girl. He towered over her, at least a whole head taller but likely more, and then he did something utterly unthinkable – he _smiled _and reached out to tug on one of the errant curls sprung free from her pinnings.

Tom felt his jaw unhinge and for a moment he couldn't hear past the rush of blood pumping through his veins. He watched Persephone stiffen at the touch, saw Lestrange notice but ignore it, then he said something that made her look at him funny…and she laughed.

His eyes darted between the two of them, Persephone's stance shifted and she smiled back up at the big brute even with how guarded her posture remained. Lestrange was still talking, saying things that she continued to smile at, a muscle in her jaw ticking as he boldly reached for her cheek. She caught his hand stiffly before it ever made contact and cupped his one in both of hers, diverting his touch and smirking up from beneath her lashes with the look that had the other boys so deeply enthralled; now – apparently – having captured this one as well.

Seeing her with his large mitt so daintily cradled between hers flipped something in his head and unbeknownst to himself, Tom had started walking.

The fact that he heard them conversing now should have been a sign, but he hadn't really realized it until he was encroaching on their space. Persephone turned her head to him, surprise evident. He wasn't sure what look he was wearing, but judging by the way Rophelius straightened, snatched his hand away from the witch, and averted his eyes all in a manner of seconds, it couldn't have been friendly.

"That's time, Lestrange," Tom spoke in a tone he thought of as "cheery". "Change it up."

Lestrange's shoulders hunched around his head a bit at the sound. "Yes, Tom."

It was all he said before removing himself from Tom's presence with poorly camouflaged haste. At the exit of Rophelius Lestrange, another student, the one who would be Persephone's next partner, had started to approach, but another look from Tom Riddle sent him scrambling to befriend the brute instead.

By the time Tom returned his attention to Persephone, she was looking at him with a single brow arched high and the side of her mouth curled in amusement. He looked over her arms folded stance, eyes lingering on the way she rested her weight on one long, slender leg with a little jut of her hip, and even from that was able to tell her mood had lightened since lunch. She was looking better than she had most of the day.

Persephone cleared her throat and he was back to her face once more.

"I never would have pegged the great Tom Riddle for a queue jumper."

Tom scoffed and opted not to reply, instead moving several paces away to a proper dueling distance, pleased when she picked a careful path away to do the same. "Ready, Miss Callaghan?" Persephone didn't answer, she just looked back at him, examined him.

**. . . **

Hermione studied him from a distance, still not stepping into her bow to initiate their session. Tom Riddle, the future Dark Lord, was staring at her hungrily, wand at the ready and waiting for the moment that she dipped her head for their duel to begin. If she'd ever thought in the entirety of her little life that she would be able to say the Dark Lord was excited to duel her, she would have had herself committed.

The hunger in his stare was not in the way that a man looked at a woman – she'd seen her share of those well enough to tell the difference – no, the way he looked at her was the way he looked at so many of those books he would read in the Hall while he tried to ignore her existence. She had captured his attention now, _finally_, and all it had really taken was one bad day.

How fortuitous that such a dreary evening turned day was now turning out as well as it was.

"Miss Callaghan?" There was no concern in that voice of his, no patience. It was that commanding tone that he used with his followers and she was expected to comply.

An amused voice that sounded very much like an older, much more jaded, version of herself hummed.

_He expects you to listen._

_He expects you to perform._

_Who are you really – in the face of Lord Voldemort – to defy those expectations?_

Hermione bowed, saw the wizard lick his lips in anticipation, and his first spell flew.

And just as quickly, their duel ended.

Hermione swung her arm in a wide arc and raised her shield up far too late. Tom Riddle's hex obliterated what little of a wall she got into place, opening a series of nasty cuts over her arm and sent her careening back into a stack of chairs.

Three things happened after that point: their professor returned to the classroom gasping at the sight, the bell rang, and Tom Riddle stood there in complete shock, mouth agape.

"Mister Riddle!" the professor screeched and ran over with a few other students to help free the girl from the collapsed furniture. "_You_ stay after class, young man! That was NOT a sanctioned spell for our practice duels. Oh, oh my goodness, oh my goodness! Persephone, dear, are you alright?"

Hermione loosed a pained groan as someone propped her upright. She clutched at her bleeding arm and blanched at the sight of it, looking very much as though she were about to faint.

"Oh, oh dear! Mr. Malfoy, here, come _here!_ Take Miss Callaghan to the hospital wing – NOW!"

Abraxas Malfoy scrambled forward, Prefect that he was, and nodded, murmuring his acquiescence to the professor all while looking terribly frightened at the consequences he would face from Tom Riddle's hand later for handling the girl while he had to linger and get in_ trouble._

Tom was still standing in utter bafflement, likely going over and over in his mind how wrong that entire encounter had just gone, when Hermione caught his stare.

She leaned heavily against Abraxas, hair falling in a curtain around her face as she braced her uninjured side to his. She took in the still confused look on Tom Riddle's face and, for only the barest of seconds, quirked her lips in a grin meant only for him.

In an instant, the realization flooded into every inch of his frame and he went from confusion to blinding fury.

Who was _she_ to defy the Dark Lord and the games he set before her?

Her name was Hermione Granger.

And she had no master here.


	11. Chapter 10 - Tasting Persephone (Book I)

**10 – Tasting Persephone**

May 1943

To say Tom Riddle was livid at the incident in DADA would have been a generous understatement. Abraxas had escorted Persephone to the hospital wing but was promptly shooed away by the nurse after he relayed the happenings. When Malfoy returned to the Slytherin dormitories with nothing to present other than his account of dropping her off in the wing and being told that one of her housemates would be notified to fetch her when she was properly bandaged, Tom lost-his-mind.

Abraxas was still recovering from Tom's temper that next morning.

Tom was seated, as usual, at the long table, a tome he'd been studying for weeks now open and unread and his sizable slice of ham cut into perfectly portioned bite sized pieces, also untouched. His stare was fixed at the empty spot where the girl usually would seat herself, and when it became evident she wasn't going to show, he shifted that glare to the Ravenclaw table looking for her curly head.

"..Sir?"

Tom's glare snapped to Frankfort Mulciber who had been asking him something of little importance.

The big man shrank back. "Never mind, sir."

Riddle went back to staring at the Ravenclaws, searching for the familiar girl. When the warning bell sounded, he sneered, made a disgruntled snorting noise and shoved his text under his arm. He left his followers at the table, tromping over to the birds' nest and towering over the only group of students he even remotely recognized.

"Persephone Callaghan," he said with no preamble and the command of a king, "where is she?"

The blonde girl he was staring at went red under his attention. Her mouth was flapping but no sounds aside from some strangled squeaking was coming out.

Tom narrowed his eyes with no time for her. "Olive Hornby, correct?"

She eeped more shrilly, but nodded.

"Miss Hornby, I'm looking for Persephone Callaghan. She is in your house. Yea high. Curls out to here. You know her, you spoke with her the other day."

Olive sputtered.

His temper was getting the better of him again and he asked again. _**"Where?"**_

The girl at Olive's side, the one who had wrapped an arm around her trembling shoulders, stuttered out. "B-b-bedrest Mister Riddle. Nurse's orders. She's been excused from class for the next few days due to your—"

His eyes narrowed to slits.

"—a-a-a-_an_ accident."

Tom's lips pursed and his nostrils flared in anger but he nodded to them both. "Thank you, ladies."

At his exit, Olive nearly collapsed into the other girls chest blubbering. "H-h-h-h-he _talked_ to me!"

The other girl exclaimed, "He knew your NAME!"

Olive fainted.

**. . . . .**

The next few days were filled with red for Tom. He had successfully managed to avoid detentions by sweet talking his DADA professor, but he'd been tasked, at the very least, with additional patrols. He assumed that sort of punishment was to cut into the "extracurricular" activities often associated with young boys and girls. All it did for him was leave him less time to test his theories about where the Chamber's entrance lay.

That and it only served to make him even more livid about the whole Persephone issue.

He'd immediately tried to work his way in to Ravenclaw tower to speak with her, but that pretentious knocker wouldn't even _ask_ him its riddles. It seemed house prejudice existed outside of just the students. One day, when he ran the bloody school, he'd make sure all of its magical occupants were forcibly re-educated. Until then, he still had been unable to see her or even get anyone to get a message to her. He'd briefly tried the blubbering girls again to coax the crafty witch out, but they just kept falling all over themselves at his presence; he'd cut his losses and called it on that avenue.

Sneering to himself at the thought, Tom paced the corridors, the light at the end of his wand jabbing harshly into alcoves and cubbies. He'd sent two sets of cuddling Gryffindors back to their tower already, but even the deduction of points didn't do much for him.

He arrived at the library, the midpoint to his patrol, and greeted Madam Pince as he always did. She adored him, he knew, and would often keep him longer than he cared to be in the woman's presence. But, he chatted with her, as was typical, before leaving her to work through writing up late slips for books past due while he prodded around the stacks to make sure everyone had cleared out.

The library appeared unsurprisingly clear. Exams weren't close enough for it to be filled to the brim with students hiding for last minute cram sessions, so he was not expecting to find anything different. It was at that point, as he crossed into the restricted section and felt a ripple of magic dance over his skin, however, that he found the first person he wanted to see in the last place he thought to look.

_"Callaghan,"_ Tom spat her name at a volume that should have called Pince over in a flash. When the librarian didn't show, he narrowed his eyes at the witch and took that press of magic to be her silencing charms.

"Riddle." Persephone hummed his name pleasantly without looking up from the books she had spread out on the table.

The boy growled, wand out threateningly now, and he went right into it. "I don't appreciate being made to look a fool, Callaghan."

She shrugged and flipped a page with her wounded arm. The limb was wrapped wrist to shoulder in neatly pressed cloth bandages that had little splotches of discoloration here and there from a mixture of salves and blood. "I don't usually care for being sliced open, myself. We've all got crosses to bear, hurdles to jump, and all that rot." She waved dismissively at the last.

Tom closed the distance between them in a scant few steps and jerked her book well from her sight and her reach.

Her eyes turned up at him darkly and slowly, methodically, she leaned back in her seat. "_Stop_ taking my books."

He ignored her. "It appears I've given you far too much of a lead. You've grown comfortable with this disrespect and—"

"I'm sorry," she said flatly, "I believe you might be mistaking me for one of your cronies, that of which, I am not. Perhaps you really _do_ need some instruction on dealing with women—"

Tom's wand flashed out to silence her and he'd gone redder in the face than he'd ever been. His free hand clamped down on her injured arm, thumb rooting around past the edges of her bandages and digging hard into her skin and reopening one of her wounds. The witch's mouth fell open in surprised pain, but her voice was still muffled, a fact which made Tom grin maliciously and with _great_ satisfaction. He pressed in on her, forcing her rigid against the back of her chair as he snarled into her face.

"You _WILL_ listen to me, witch! You may have taken me by surprise once, but it will not happen again. I was merely _waiting_ to attend to you and whatever ridiculous notions of manipulation you've managed to get in your head, Callaghan, but you've not actually fooled me! You've stirred enough trouble within my men and around my name already. Now you will tell me _precisely_ what you are plotting – _**LEGILIMENS!**_"

**. . .**

Hermione, skilled as she'd become in the art of occlumency, cried out in a silent scream at the force of Tom Riddle's spell. She recalled him rooting in her mind in the Alley, trying to be slick and sly and covert; this was **nothing** like that.

The delicate magic she'd felt from him upon her first meeting was merely an inquisitive Tom Riddle, poking and prodding and trying to inspect his prey. This, his forceful push of rage and fury pulsing in her head in those first few agonizing seconds, was so very much more than she'd anticipated. As the magic roiled and spread, ripping through her mind and shredding through her walls like paper, she realized that this wasn't just Tom Riddle, _this_ was the magic of the Dark Lord.

It was a sobering thought.

It was the thought she needed.

**. . .**

Tom had never entered a mind like hers before.

A person's thoughts were never linear, never more than snapshots of memories or desires.

It was certainly not uncommon for them to fly at him at random and present a colorful variety of scenes for him to delve into and pick through. He was expecting that.

What he wasn't expecting was the volume of them all, pressing in on him from every side, suffocating him. He was in control moments ago, but the second he passed her barriers, it was as though _he_ was the one drowning.

Even disembodied as he was, he felt her magic sweep in like an undertow, ripping the very ground from beneath him to drag him across the jagged crystals of memories swirling in her head.

_. . ._

_A familiar chandelier rocked and twinkled in mid-morning light._

_A black haired woman pressed down on his chest, her lips peeled off her decaying teeth and she cackled with maddened delight. _

_Puffs of rancid air danced over his cheek as she whispered something unintelligible and the unmistakable searing sting of a blade began carving jagged shapes into his arm._

_. . ._

_The tile was cold and wet beneath his hands where he fell – was pushed._

_He looked up and saw a creature staring at him with interest from behind scarlet eyes._

_It smirked at him and turned away to say something to a body standing by his throne._

_It laughed._

_They laughed._

_. . ._

_A fist in his hair held him taut to view a street lined with burning houses._

_Muggles._

_Muggle houses?_

_The black haired woman again. She was frolicking down the block, igniting trees, and buildings, and __**people.**_

_There was a pile of bodies she had collected, tossed into the center of the road, allowing them to lay crumpled and lifeless and bleeding._

_Two more live ones were brought to stand before the pile._

_He struggled against the man's arms holding him._

_The woman sliced them from chin to hip with a curse he'd never heard before, their mouths open, frozen in horror and pain even as the light faded from their eyes._

_Their bodies slumped down too._

_He screamed – the body he was in __**screamed**__ – a raw and bloody sound that made the fires around him flare._

_The woman stopped her frolicking, looked at him with a combination of nervousness and loathing._

_She pointed her wand at him and everything turned black._

_. . ._

_Shutter._

_Shutter._

_Shutter shutter shutter. . ._

_. . ._

_He couldn't see._

_His head throbbed._

_His eyes were…__**gone.**_

_He screamed as the feeling of fingers wriggling in his sockets became more prominent and all of his nerves flared to life. _

_And all of them were in __**PAIN.**_

_A voice that sounded so much like Persephone's hummed sweetly in his ear, "Shutter the pain…"_

_He was in someone else's body?_

_He felt the press of lips on his temple and the scene shifted again-any control that he had before fell away in the ocean of this witch's head._

_. . ._

_He was looking up at Persephone then._

_She was braced over him with her face so close to his, close enough he could feel her breath panting out across his._

_His hands traced over her shoulders, sliding down her arms in too familiar a fashion._

_She smiled, her eyes alight like garnets but shifting to become tinted by a strange silvery film. "You might want to stay out of here…"_

_Persephone sat back then, tossed her head back, and he saw her naked and rocking atop him._

_His hands moved of their own accord, sliding over her bare stomach to cup her breasts and roll his thumbs over her pert nipples, a needy noise sending jolts of pleasure through this ethereal version of his body._

"_Callaghan," he heard himself grit out in too breathy of a voice, a voice that wasn't actually his. "What are you—"_

_The grinding of her hips cut off the question, transforming it into an incoherent grunt. She entwined fingers with one of his hands on her breast, guiding his other between them to massage between her swollen lips._

"_Distracting you," Persephone gasped out an answer in half-smug laughter and half-blissful pleasure. _

_Her lids fluttered and her voice echoed in his ears._

"_Tom! My Lord—"_

. . .

Tom ripped himself free, staggering back into the nearby bookshelves and staring at the girl with a confusing mixture of emotions.

His breaths were labored, eyes wide, and a thin layer of perspiration made his uniform cling to every inch of his body unpleasantly. His trousers were tented and a different sort of moisture saturated his slacks. Tom shuddered at the scene, still vivid and lingering behind his lids, and he couldn't stop his limbs from trembling as he coaxed himself away from that edge before he lost any more control of the situation.

Persephone's raspy chuckling drew his livid stare. His magic had shattered and her voice was free and clear even through her own panted breaths.

The witch swiped a palm over her cheeks, smearing away the moisture from one, then the other. She looked at her hand, at the tears that had leaked out from his unwelcome probing. She sniffed, felt the telltale weight of something heavier than mucus dribbling over her lips. Her tongue darted out and tasted metal; she laughed quietly again and swiped blood from beneath her nose.

"It's a bit murky there," she said softly. Persephone tapped her temple to clarify what she was referring to and moved slowly, carefully, to pick herself up from her stiffly padded chair. Her legs wobbled once she was on her feet and her voice sounded raw, dangerous, and not at all like she approved of what had just occurred. "Better to just ask _nicely_ next time."

Tom Riddle stared at her, open mouthed and, for the first time that he could ever recall, he was at a loss. He was still formulating a response when Madam Pince appeared, red faced and all out of the patience that she never had – apparently the girl's spells had faded as well.

"_WHAT_ is all this racket, Tom?" Pince gasped, "Miss Callaghan? It is _well_ past curfew, what are you still doing here? And in the restricted section!"

Persephone discreetly wiped at her nose once more, whispering a spell that staunched the flow before she turned bloodshot eyes up to the fuming librarian. "I apologize Madam. I'd fallen asleep before Mister Riddle found me…I will be heading back to the tower now."

"You are _quite_ right about that! Hurry along or I will have points deducted for your negligence of school rules! Do not let me catch you in these stacks again without explicit written permission!"

"Yes Madam." Persephone bowed her head, slung her bag over her good shoulder and made a show of slinking out of their presence.

Pince turned to look at all of the texts still sprawled on the desk and she huffed with even greater irritation.

"I will clean up here, Madam."

She looked startled, almost having forgotten that he was there for a moment. The irritation on her face lessened only slightly at the sight of him and Pince gave him a strained smile, oblivious to his somewhat haggard state. "Thank you, Tom."

The woman left him again and as soon as she had turned the corner, Tom went back to slumping against the books at his back. He ran a still sweaty palm over his face, as if it would scrub any and all of the things he'd seen in Persephone's mind from his own memory. He tried to piece together what he'd seen but it was like trying to assemble a jigsaw puzzle with no image printed on its pieces. Each section was important and would nestle very specifically into another, yet he had no clue as to what the final picture was to be.

He waved his wand at the tomes on the table, taking his time with re-shelving the texts as he continued to mull over it all.

Tom had been right about her. Persephone Callaghan was trouble. She was trouble in a greater way than he would have anticipated.

She was also much more clever – much more _powerful_ – than he had initially given her credit for.

He reached out to shut the last book left from her reading, the pages stacking on themselves with a dull _thwump._ Tom hefted the thing in his hand to check its title for its proper spot and his mouth dropped open.

_Secrets of the Darkest Art._

It was the text Tom had been searching for ever since he'd read in another book about the existence of horcruxes and their uses. Others merely mentioned what they were, vague inferences to vessels of the soul, and he'd found one or two references about the tome he was now holding in his hand-the tome that had been missing from the Hogwarts library according to Pince's own catalog records.

His tongue came out to whet his lips.

This was phase two.

His eyes were drawn to a smear of blood on its cover, old, dried and browning the leather. He thought about Persephone, the girl he'd made scream and cry and bleed in the silenced corner of the library who had driven _him_ out of her mind like it was all a game.

He smoothed his palm over the cover of the book once more, tracing the embossed letters almost reverently. Whispering a soft incantation, the book hovered before him and flipped through its mass of chapters to the place it had been open to immediately before; his lips curled into a smile.

Tom looked back at the path she'd taken out from the stacks and his nostrils flared, pulse stuttered just a _little_, and his mouth was suddenly dry again already. He shut his eyes, heard his blood pounding in his ears, and recalled the way her voice had echoed in rapture, focusing less on the panted gasp and so much more on the words.

Persephone Callaghan was trouble and, much like himself, she had a plan. What's more, she had a plan that she wanted him to be a part of, had a part for him to play.

He reached down to adjust himself, shaking off the persistent memory of her calling out to him and trapping him with her magic in her own head like she did. Tom Riddle allowed himself the smallest sardonic smirk when he understood that, much like his plan, hers had already started and he had fallen into line so far, every single step of the way.

_To ensnare Tom Marvolo Riddle, _he thought_, she might be the cleverest witch of her age._

**. . . . .**

The next morning for Tom was painstakingly long. Every time he shut his eyes after returning to the dungeons from patrol, he would see the scenes from Persephone's mind playing out over and over in an endless loop. Some were fuzzy, some were as clear as if he were living them in the moment. The one that kept terrorizing his thoughts, though, was the sight of her, nude with her back bowed in ecstasy screaming his name – his _title_ – which he had yet to properly claim.

He would have liked to say that he was lingering on the image trying to dissect how she knew, how she had come to know enough to know _that._

The truth of it, however, was that he couldn't stop focusing on the way she felt fluttering around him, squeezing him, strangling him with her walls, silky and wet and trembling all for him – because of _him._ She'd known exactly what she was doing when she wrangled control from him as he'd tried to scour her thoughts.

Persephone Callaghan had bared herself to him in that intimate way, implanting sensations she felt when she would touch herself into his borrowed body. Every spike of pleasure that had rippled through him had really been simply a memory of her own all carefully molded into a fantasy that she'd concocted just to keep him from viewing anything else.

At least he _thought_ she'd created it just then, _just_ for that purpose.

Further consideration over the possibilities made him groan and he rolled onto his stomach, smothering his face - as well as his arousal - into the mattress.

Tom had woken several times well before his wand was set to alarm him, none of his attempts at sleep having any other effect than making his cock throb harder and making it more insistent that he address its issue when he would wake again. He still had well over an hour before he needed to shower and dress for classes but the longer he lay in his curtained bed, the louder her breathing seemed to get in his head.

Finally, at his wits end, Tom turned heavily onto his back again, even such a relatively minor shift making his eyes roll at the way his pyjamas rubbed across his skin. He shut his eyes, licked his lips, and rubbed a hand over his stomach, concentrating only on the way the pads of his fingers felt on the skin while mimicking the path hers took in his failed attempt to ravage her mind. He loosened the ties of his trousers and his fingers danced down his abdomen through a sparse nest of curls, only this time he was missing the wetness of sweat and her fluids coating him.

Tom shivered, remembering how soft she'd been, how insistently she'd pressed his fingers to her, on either side of her sensitive nub of flesh to lead him in rhythmic circles around it. Even though he'd invaded her head, tried to have her submit to his whims and spread her thoughts before him on a platter, she'd turned him into a toy.

He should have been angry.

He should have been seeking out her head on a platter because she _clearly_ knew and somehow learned far too much about him and what he was doing.

Instead, he was having quite the difficult time getting past the way her magic, vindictive and delicious and dark, sizzled with an intensity he'd not experienced beyond his own; it had curled around him and coaxed him to her will – her pleasure – and then fucked him in a prison he'd tried to create.

Tom's hand dipped below his waistband to grip himself even as he awkwardly tried to shove his trousers down past his hips. He rubbed his thumb over the tip of his prick to smooth the gathering moisture down and around his length with a trembling grip.

He thought of how soft and small her hands were in his.

He thought of how she'd said his hands were rough.

He grunted, shifting his hips and freeing one of his legs from his pyjamas to spread them.

Tom rubbed firm, languid strokes along his length, recalling the somehow coy way Persephone had managed to ride him even with how expertly she'd moved and how tightly she clamped around his cock.

He remembered how her mouth opened and closed in the most melodic gasps he'd ever heard when the ridge of him pressed into her over and over again. Her bottom lip had been all swollen and glossy from where she'd kept drawing it between her teeth and whimpering at the feel of him and her breast had been heavy in his hand.

His hips shifted again.

His freed leg bent.

He was no one's toy, no one's plaything, but she'd taken him so mercilessly, bounced atop him with her hair wild and crackling like it did when she'd become incited, moaning his name, singing of his future rule in that cry.

Sounds of her breathing filled his head, her panting, her coos, her bloody smug laughter-

_That dangerous tremor to her voice that always came with the flares of her magic…_

Tom grunted, his pulse quickening.

His hand moved from full strokes to shorter, more focused touches that lingered around his tip. He rubbed his thumb over himself at the height of each one in those same easy, rolling caresses he'd used to tease her nipples or between her legs, and felt the tingles of pleasure tightening things in his gut, his chest, his legs, his toes…

Tom's mouth fell open, one leg still bent at the knee and drooping to the side as the steady pumping rhythm of his hand increased, his hips beginning stuttering, jerky thrusts into his own palm. He turned his head into his pillows and less distinguished, more guttural, more animalistic sounds started to bubble up from his chest.

Visions of the way she'd looked up at him from beneath her curtain of hair after he'd sliced open her arm flitted through his head.

The times she would turn one of her smug smiles his way and it would actually reach her eyes.

_That shining glint of garnet that sang of darkness and power when she greeted him in her mind and proceeded to fuck him right the hell back out of it—_

A strangled noise caught between a grunt and a growl tore from his throat as he came before he could muffle the sound into the pillow completely.

His hand worked his shaft, pumping erratically in a poor imitation of the wonderful flutter of muscles that had surrounded him so vividly hours before until he'd spent himself impressively all along the back of his knuckles, across one hip, and a thigh. His cock twitched and pulsed in his loosened grip, a seemingly endless number of spasms to empty himself keeping his breath shuddering and toes tingling for what could have been the longest time since he'd first discovered the pleasures of wanking.

Tom lay on his sheets in a small puddle of his own sweat and other things for several long moments before the muscles in his leg started to ache. He grit his teeth, sneered, and cursed internally at the weakness of his own flesh only so far as his post-orgasmic haze would allow and finally reached for his wand to clean himself up.

It was around that time that he realized that the heavy breathing that had spurred his impromptu self-pleasuring session hadn't stopped.

In fact, it sounded like it was louder and coming from somewhere to his left.

Carefully, quietly, Tom nudged the edge of one of the heavy velvet drapes around his bed to the side and peered out just enough to see. The light from the wee morning hours was already filtering through the lake and sending beautiful colors into their room through the dorm's windows. The breathing had definitely grown louder and upon seeing its source, Tom understood why.

There lay Abraxas Malfoy in his bed, the magicked sound dampening curtain around it having been knocked slightly open – _open __**enough**__ –_ from what appeared to be a rather invigorating wank session for the boy.

Tom's gaze only lingered long enough to make sense of what was happening and long enough to have a funny feeling of rage building in his chest when he saw the boy had been stroking himself with a familiar blue and bronze hair scarf wrapped around his fist.

Tom's sneer turned into something much more dangerous and malicious, his teeth making an awful grinding noise in his own skull, but he retreated back behind his own bed curtains, pulling them more firmly shut to block out Abraxas' labored breathing.

He lay there, staring at his canopy, and did his best to squash the budding and intensely territorial feeling that was urging him to storm over and castrate the boy mid-stroke.

Persephone Callaghan may have been trouble, but she was _**his**_ trouble.

* * *

**A/N:** Hey everyone! Thanks so much for the great response to the last chapter. I'm trying to not bog down each post with a lot of my yammering at the end, but there were tons of reviews just on the last one and I really wanted to say thank you. I'm glad that most of you are enjoying this so far and it was really bolstering to see this amazing stream of notifications come through from you all - thanks for that. :)

Just a couple pieces of info I wanted to also leave here in response to some questions.

Prefects: I believe the official take on these are one boy, one girl years 5 through 7 per house in addition to the Head Boy and Girl. I pretty blatantly changed this for my delights. Hopefully that doesn't put anyone off too much.

Relevant Dates I'm Actually Acknowledging: Tom Marvolo Riddle Jr.'s DOB - 12/31/1926, Hermione Jean Granger's DOB - 9/19/1979 (plus the smattering of additional minutes to alter her age during the original use of the Time Turner). Do with this information what you will. :)

Alright all, I'm out again until next post! I'm hoping to average 2 updates a week but nothing solid as of right now. 'Til next time!


	12. Chapter 11 - The Devil's Girl (Book I)

**11 – The Devil's Girl**

May 1943

Hermione rubbed at her eyes groggily as she made her way down to breakfast. Her nights of late, minus the last entertaining evening with Tom Riddle trying to dive into the mess that was her noggin, had felt ever so much more draining.

The last night in the library had been _most_ invigorating and, the more she thought about it, the more she yearned to unleash the tight control she'd been exercising over the mind of her younger self since she had arrived in the past. The most unsurprising thing about using time travel to alter the future was that, well, timing was everything. As such, Hermione had very meticulously plotted and planned and calculated against all the historic events she could find in the happenings of wizarding Britain and Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry to determine precisely how long she needed to stay to accomplish what she needed to do.

_Two years._

It was the magic number.

It was how long she'd crafted her spells and her connections to last her while she was there.

It was how long she had to build the relationships she needed to secure her future.

It was how long she had before the hold on her young self, stretched thin by time and space, would crumble, and she'd have a whole different mess of trouble.

Every day, she felt the spirit of her young, foolhardy Gryffindor self trying to lash out and break free of her hold. And every night where she struggled with the most righteous part of herself, she would take out her book of fairy stories and read, letting the press of her darkened and splintered soul wash over her. It was a struggle, every evening, to keep her battered but healing young mind from sloughing off the curses and bindings that held her to a greater agenda. Some nights she wondered if she should have been a Slytherin after all, what with the way that the tenacious girl from a more innocent time posed herself so expertly waiting for when she was at her weakest to strike.

Hermione smiled thinking about it.

For as much as she disliked the warring personalities inside her mind, she thought it ironic that the press of the lioness is what drew out the actual snake at last. The exhaustion of holding up a series of mental walls to section off the Younger's past from her older self's past – one that hadn't even happened for this physical body yet – along with keeping straight the days she was living in a time where she existed only within the lies she had put into place years prior…well, it was confusing and exhausting to a degree that was so thorough and so complete that it had her fuzzy on the reality and the _everything else._

It had also given her younger, more naïve mind a chance to run rampant for some hours in the night and cause unneeded trouble for her amongst her housemates.

Hermione's purer consciousness, with as much as it was struggling to surface, had figured out that it didn't have long and had done all it could to draw attention to itself by making her persona, Persephone Callaghan, act a fool in the off chance that the right person or people would notice. She'd been so tired from constructing and holding the winding paths of her mind in place day and night, sleeping only until it came time to reinforce them again against the internal ticking time bomb of Hermione-fucking-Granger the Pure, that the one and the very same had been able to take over long enough to say some choice pieces of insanity to the Ravenclaws that had them looking at her now like she was properly mad.

_If the stupid pure girl would only understand, if she would listen long enough to understand that it truly was better this way – that she was creating a new life for her…for them both…for ALL of her – she would stop trying to muck everything up!_

Hermione the Elder had been able to regain control and covered for the insanity spewed forth from her own lips as best she could, but nearly all of the other students were now giving her quite a wide berth both in and out of class. It was that one night of aggravation that had caused her temper to flare and her true colors to peek through. It was that very same righteous behavior, which had always drawn the darkness to it, that had finally snared her Tom Riddle's attention and, with that, the opening she needed to finally draw him fully into her plan.

To pique his interest in such a peculiar and talented finding – namely herself – only to remove it from his grasp for _**days**_ she knew, based on what she'd experienced from the creature he became in adulthood, that he would take it poorly. The creature, the _man,_ disliked it when there were things he couldn't have or when they didn't go his way, and the boy was no different.

What she didn't realize was just how magnificently his teenaged self would consume all the breadcrumbs she left leading him to her in every way imaginable.

For as dangerous as it had been the night before to fall to him for even a second-to allow him to shred through the walls barely in place for _herself_, much less have someone of his caliber clawing through her head-it had been the most cathartic release she'd had in ages. Even at this age, he was too strong for little "Hermione the Pure" to withstand the way he'd torn through her thoughts, but she – the darkened embodiment of her maddened older self – was more than happy to meet him at the gates. And he didn't disappoint in the least.

_Last night was marvelous,_ Hermione thought and prodded her plate of eggs with a sour disposition. _Alas, here comes the sun._

She was back to classes today with an entire nice, neat stack of papers to turn in as make up work from the rest days she'd fooled the Boy Lord into giving her. She'd finished all the assignments as soon as she was given them and spent the rest of her past few days of bed rest dedicating all of that free time to researching other ways to stop this little piece of her from poisoning her plans. Hermione had learned a handful of new things, but it still bore additional reading; for once, she was so _tired_ of reading.

"You look _dreadful_ this morning, Persephone."

Hermione glanced up from her plate to see a meek girl with black hair pulled into low pigtails, her big round spectacles sitting lopsidedly on her mousy face. She tried to smile but she was sure it came out as something far less friendly judging by the look on the girls face. "I'm fine, Myrtle, thank you."

"So you're…feeling better than…"

Hermione's eyes hardened looking at the girl and she had to look back down at her meal, chewing more slowly and deliberately, before she burned a hole through her.

_Than the other night when you appeared to go insane in the common room screaming about a wizarding war and murder?_

She knew what Myrtle wanted to say. Hermione also knew what she wanted to do to the students that had witnessed her strange breakdown, none of which would be conducive to her plans…too many of them needed to be alive to reproduce their generations of other arsehole Ravenclaws. She'd been able to play a great deal of it off as some post-traumatic stress after a vague recollection of happenings to her fake Muggle-born parents in America and clean up a bit of the mess with some strategic obliviations, but too many had still seen and heard.

Hermione had been surprised at the number of housemates that had presented her with a newly reinforced, callous attitude at the discovery of her blood status. She had once believed that blood prejudice was a way of only the snottiest of wizarding kind, relegated to just one of the four houses. She had been wrong. She supposed that, especially as far in the past as she was, she should _not_ have been surprised…but she was. It was why the scant few that paid her any mind now were the Muggle-borns, though she was still not well liked and supposed she would remain that way for as long as she stayed at the top of her classes.

Too bad for them that _that_ was not a point she was willing to compromise on.

It was fortunate she was not unused to being ostracized and she was old enough to not bloody care. Hermione's main concern was that Tom Riddle would find out at a most inopportune time and it would send everything into a tailspin. She was still working her way through her classmates, altering their memories as she could, but it was a risky thing. At the very least, she could count her blessings for once about the exclusiveness of the birds because they so often deemed their gossip too elite for the other houses.

Still…

Hermione set her fork down and scrubbed at her face. "I'm fine, Myrtle," she said again finally.

The girl flinched at her tone but nodded and went about eating her own breakfast, trying and failing to not keep staring across the table at the other witch.

Hermione was doing her best to ignore the stare pounding into the top of her head, growing steadily more irate, when a surprised squeak sounded a little ways to her side. She blinked tiredly to her left and saw Olive Hornby and her posse having all gone still save for a shake to their hands and the color drain from their skin. She raised a single eyebrow at their odd behavior but had to wait only a second for the explanation.

"Miss Callaghan," said Tom Riddle with an odd tightness to his voice, "I see you have finally made it down to breakfast."

Hermione's head turned ever so slowly to look forward once more and find out the source of that mellow, always slightly cocky voice. At first glance he didn't appear any different than usual-same exquisitely pressed uniform, smoothly rolled lapel, and perfectly centered tie-but there was something _else._ The way he was looking at her, on the surface it was no different, but she felt a different heat to his stare. His interest, his attention, it was fully focused on her and she could feel the edges of his magic just licking at the borders of hers, pacing it like a beast walking the bars of its cage. He didn't want to pass through those borders again just yet it seemed; the thought made her smirk.

"Good morning Mister Riddle. I'm sorry, I didn't recognize you for a moment without you pointing your wand at me." She was tired enough that her voice had come out a bit rough and ragged, scraping along the notes of something almost sultry. Hermione watched his shoulders stiffen as she spoke, "How have you been these past few days during my recovery?"

Tom's stare flicked to her mouth, watching the words form and becoming momentarily distracted by the memory of how they looked calling his name. He was meeting her eyes again, finding he was disappointed when they weren't flaring hints of muted red shades in his direction. "I apologize about that Miss Callaghan. I had been trying to apologize sooner but you were very much locked down, it seems. Couldn't even get a message sent to you."

Hermione shrugged, wincing dramatically when she moved her still bandaged arm. "It's nothing Tom—" His eye ticked just barely at the sound of his name. She tilted her head curiously but said nothing about it. "Accidents happen, you know."

"Yes, true."

Tom gave her a tight smile, willing his stare to remain on hers and not study the hand that was moving around the side of her neck to massage out an ache. She held his gaze with a sureness, with so much confidence to her own that it had started a tingling in his nethers and it suddenly felt safer to _not_ look into her eyes. Tom cleared his throat and did so anyway, smoothing a hand over his tie and fastened the couple of buttons on his jacket, the edge of it falling neatly to his hips and shading evidence of his growing… interest.

"I would still apologize and assure you that these _accidents_ won't happen again however – not by _my_ hand."

Hermione smirked, she nearly laughed aloud, understanding exactly what accidents he was referring to and made a small production of standing and gathering her things. "Never say never, Mister Riddle."

"Leaving already?" Tom asked, tracking her movements with more than a passing interest. "You've just arrived."

"Watching me so closely?" she teased and he stiffened so slightly even she almost couldn't tell.

"Well, I _have_ been assigned to escort you. Where are you heading?"

Hermione hefted her bag over her shoulder and gave him a genuine smile, feeling a tingling down the back of her neck the second she did. In an instant something hungry entered his expression and she could feel the press of him again at the walls in her mind.

He was there, hesitating, waiting, but still nudging so insistently. His magic rubbed itself against hers in a rhythm she'd shown him the night before and her lids fluttered – _he was asking nicely_, she cooed internally. Tom Riddle, it seemed, was a quick study.

"I've a letter to send before Potions but I can make my way there on my own, Mister Riddle." Hermione licked her lips, mouth having gone dry, but still having given him no permission to search through her skull. His presence was teasing, though. It was solid and caressing, hard and sweetly pulsing just on the edge of her consciousness; she pushed it away with her own, an almost flirtatious nudge. "I will see you in class but perhaps you would join me this afternoon by the lake. I was hoping you might assist me with catching up on some things."

If her words came out breathier than they had a moment before, he did not comment. His presence withdrew from her mind and she did gasp then at the sudden loss, not realizing how delightfully it had filled her until it was gone.

"Of course…_Persephone_. I will see you in class." It was as though he was testing the sound of her name on his tongue and he smiled at her with charm and promise.

The rumble that had made its way into his tone when he spoke made her thighs clench and she felt the walls around her mind receding slightly at the warm sound. His eyes darkened in response to her, the fluctuation of her energy, but he simply nodded again and excused himself politely. Hermione followed his form through the morning crowd and noted that he never stopped again at his own table. She wondered idly if he'd ever been sitting there in the first place or merely watching and waiting for her to arrive.

Hermione was brought back to the present by another set of ridiculous screeching noises at her side. She turned her head to see Olive Hornby sputtering and looking faint, she and her idiot girl friends muttering about Tom Riddle. When she caught the girl's eyes, Olive gave her the dirtiest look she'd seen in decades. Hermione just quirked one fine brow before leaving for the owlery.

**. . . . .**

Hermione was sitting on a particularly nice patch of grass on the far side of the lake near a smattering of the edge of forest when he came to her. She had missed his presence at first but he only reached as far as the next closest crop of trees before she felt him tingling along the back of her neck like a pleasant breeze.

Hermione was sprawled on her stomach, cloak laid out like a blanket with her legs bent at the knees and swinging idly as she flipped the pages of her book. "I was beginning to think you wouldn't come."

Tom paused on the knoll, eyeing her shoeless feet swinging as a light tune of an unfamiliar song floated on the air between them. He scanned the pile of things at her side: bag, shoes, tie, wand; the casually lain stack of her belongings along with the quaint scene of her sunning on the grass humming somehow put him more on his guard rather than less. Tom approached her with caution, wand in hand, and when he saw the text she was reading, he looked at her in question. "Babbity Rabbity?"

She shrugged and with a smile in her voice she replied, "Sometimes it's just a good day for a fairy tale or two."

He smirked and seated himself at her right side near her shoulder. "I've never cared for these…children's stories." Tom reached towards the book with the intention of examining it; the idea that _taking_ things you wanted outright was inappropriate and unappreciated being an utterly foreign concept to him. He got as far as hovering a hand's breadth from the edge of the cover when hers darted out, clamping down on his wrist with a startling press of force. His wand was aimed at her forehead in a manner of seconds but it was the abrupt stop to her humming and the complete lack of her carefree tone in her next words that stilled the spell on his tongue.

"This one you don't touch." Her voice was a purr of dark, threatening promise and she'd shifted to look at him.

The crackle of her power tickled across his skin and those alluring shades were swirling in her glare again. She looked up at him from the wrong end of his wand, appearing wholly unafraid and entirely too much like she was more than ready to act on that unspoken threat despite her disadvantageous position.

He resisted licking his lips and moved to retract his hand, though his wand arm didn't budge. When it was clear to her that he _was_ moving away from the book, she released his wrist. "Well, now that the pleasantries are over with, Miss Callaghan, should we get right into it or would you like to continue with these—" Tom waved his now free hand between the two of them. "—caricatures."

Hermione's harsh expression softened and she closed her book, rolling onto her back and smiling up at him from where she lay. "It's 'Miss Callaghan' again? After last night I was under the impression we might have moved into the realm of first names. You _have_ seen me naked at this point, after all."

"I will take your acknowledgement of our meeting as your answer. Why are you here?" Tom's overall posture was relaxed and easy, his tone equally so. The only real sign that he was still assessing the threat level of the woman at his side being the rigidity of his wand arm and the fact that it was still a scant space away from the skin of her forehead.

"Whatever happened to asking nicely? I quite liked that." she sighed in exasperation.

A sneer found its way to his features and he wasn't sure if he was more aggravated with her continued evasiveness or the fact that she seemed completely unfazed by the wand so close to being burrowed into her skull. "_This_ is asking nicely, or would you rather I rip the information from that pretty little head of yours?"

At that, Hermione's taunting look sobered some and she reached a hand slowly, carefully up to rest on the white knuckled fist clenching his wand. She watched his eyes flick heatedly to her hand and back to her face, lingering somewhere in between on the visual fact that her blouse had been unfastened down to the edge of her pinafore.

Hermione waited until his gaze had refocused on her face, his bubbling frustration a near tangible thing, before asking him _very_ seriously, "Do you really think I'm pretty?"

Tom felt his blood pressure skyrocket at the mockery and the _crucio_ was shooting from the end of his wand before he had the sense to silence the field first. The witch's hand tightened on his, her fingers spasming as they clamped around him and her back arched off the ground. When her mouth dropped open to scream he came to his knees and fastened his other hand over it to muffle her screams.

Only it wasn't a scream that was muffled, it was her laughter.

Tom's eyes went wide as, even as his curse was rolling through her, making her body twitch and squirm, that hand of hers was creeping its way down the length of his wand. Seeing her resist, watching her continue to taunt him as she was both physically and magically restrained, incited him further and his sneer turned towards an enraged snarl, his temper overcoming everything else in that moment. The need to bring her in line was overwhelming. Her fingers wrapped around his wand as if to push it away but he redoubled his efforts, another venomous _crucio_ on the tip of his tongue.

Tom Riddle never got the chance to cast a second time thanks to the explosion of red sparks that seared his palm and sent him back into the grass several metres away. He was laid out on the ground, relearning how to breathe after his impact. He was still blinking away starbursts from his vision when he felt the distinct buzzing of a spell coming his way. His right hand clenched to put up a shield and – _nothing._

Tom had half a moment to comprehend that he no longer had his wand before he rolled violently to avoid the shock of magic that hit the grass where his head had been. Without a wand for the first time in _years_, Tom crouched as defensively as he could in starched trousers and a blazer and set his eyes on his attacker.

"I'm not—" Persephone Callaghan's shoulders jerked in a quick but violent spasm from where she was still working to get her feet under her. "—overly fond of that spell. Sssorry-" She twitched again from his curse but grit the words out, "f-for nearly taking your head. Ref-f-flex, you know."

The witch's body trembled from the fading traces of his magic, her uniform was dirty and grass stained, and her hair wilder than usual with clippings, twigs, and soil caught in it from where she'd been writhing in the field. It was all irrelevant and paled in the face of the fact that she was holding _**his**_ wand.

There, in her partially bandaged grip, sat the unmistakable cut and carving of yew that he'd held from day one of being formally introduced to the world of magic.

The confusion on his face was evident and his eyes went searching for an explanation, only to find that in her left, she held her own wand in a surer grip than his. He reasoned that she must have grabbed it when he'd been so focused on cursing her. She'd grabbed _it_ and _his_ wand too, not to mention she'd managed to cast during the pummeling waves of dark magic coursing through her veins – _wordlessly._

She should not have been able to do that.

She should _not_ have been able to think beyond screaming – beyond the pain.

She should _NOT_ have been able to disarm him under the thrall of an Unforgivable.

Tom's breath hitched as the last thought skidded all his others to a grinding halt.

She disarmed him.

_She_ disarmed _HIM_.

She _**DISARMED**_ him.

No matter how the words ran through his head, it made no more sense than the time before.

His breaths were coming quickly now, stuttering out between his teeth as a frenzy built at the sheer impossibility of it all.

His hands – his _EMPTY_ hands – flexed in the grass as a long lost feeling of vulnerability started to flood his senses with startling speed. He could use his magic still – _some_ – without his wand but it was not nearly as focused, not nearly so clean and crisp in direction, not nearly as dangerous as a witch holding onto two—_just_ _FUCK._

Hermione felt the erratic tremor to the air around her and the touch of his uncontrolled energy trying to create something tangible around her made her shiver. "Stop," she said lowly, reasonably, much more reasonably than should have been allowed for a mad witch who'd just disarmed a man that would become the reigning Dark Lord of the world.

"You bloody _BITCH!_" His growl was savage and feral and every bit the antithesis to his pristine image.

Tom found his feet again and was barely restraining himself from closing the distance between them to administer a completely non-magical punishment. His shoulders heaved with the effort and his gaze was positively murderous.

Her frizzy head tilted to one side, knees still shaking beneath residual ripples from his curse, and she extended his wand to him hilt first. Hermione spoke coyly, "I _was_ hoping we could talk like civilized people—"

Tom's glare locked onto his wand in her grasp and he went blind with fury.

All the burgeoning feelings of helplessness, of weakness, were quashed and shoved aside in the wake of his rage. Tom's magic lashed out at her in a sudden, raw force that sent _her_ soaring this time. Unfocused as it was, it didn't send her far but it did have the favorable outcome of sending her very _hard_ into the nearest tree with a resounding crack.

He was on her faster than she could say 'Merlin', ripping his wand from her grasp and clamping a hand around her throat while the other shoved that wand right back into her cheek. "_Talk?_" Tom hissed, "Give me a single reason why I should not simply end you right now, Callaghan!"

Hermione swallowed, throat bobbing with great difficulty thanks to the press of his palm, and she turned a strained smile on him that bled into a mocking chuckle. The words came out as more of a croak than anything, but they tasted as sweet as her favorite marmalade on her tongue.

"It would be unwise—" _Cough._ "—to use such volatile spells when your wand is now…_conflicted,_ Mister Riddle_._ I've seen curses, very dark ones indeed, rebound. The potential effects are…" She stared hard at his nose for a long, long moment, a secretive grin spreading across her face before catching his eyes again. "Unpleasant."

"Conflicted?" he growled, brow creased and trying to make sense of her babble when he realized her meaning.

Tom stared hard at the wand in his hand in astonishment. The desire to kill her and be rid of anyone so threatening to him as this witch was _very_ prominent within his mind. It was his will to do it then, something he yearned for even more than the air to fills his lungs at that precise moment and yet his wand thrummed frantically in resistance to his urgings.

His wand was conflicted about his desire to end the witch that had disarmed him, that, for all intents and purposes,_ took_ it from him, won it by all technical accounts.

The very thought and gathering of his power with the keen desire to kill her made the yew in his hand tremble in objection.

He must have been staring at her because he watched her lips curl further into a catlike smile.

The sight of it made his jaw tighten, his hand clenched around that fragile little neck of hers and her mouth popped open in a gasp for air.

She had drawn him out.

She had provoked him.

She had not only turned him out of her mind but less than a day later withstood the full force of an Unforgivable at his hand AND then disarmed him in a duel to make his wand hesitate at the thought of disposing of her.

Now, she trembled for breath under his palm, lips parted and panting with her wand poking into his ribcage just waiting for his next move as she looked at him with her red tinged eyes that were nothing but endless depths of secrets and quiet humor.

The fortitude, mental and physical, she had displayed…her cunning ploys and manipulations…the fact that she was still now looking at him like she had all the time in the world for his decision… she was…

Absolutely fucking _breathtaking._

Her body wavered under its physical need for air, but SHE did not. She was watching, waiting for him to process it because she knew – she _somehow_ knew – that he would understand this game she'd been playing. She was betting that he would understand and that he would…what? Want to play?

Tom tightened his hold on her neck and he felt her wand press further between his ribs in response. The beginnings of a spell flared between them, drawing his attention back to her face but as quickly as it started it faded into nonexistence and she caught his stare. Her tongue flicked out to moisten her lips and she tilted her head, waiting again.

A witch, a _woman, _who had gone through that much effort to attract his attention with the level of confidence in her plans, in her wit and abilities, and _**succeed**_ was a veritable force of nature. To try to destroy such a thing, if it was even possible, he was sure was akin to a crime.

To _harness_ such a power however…

Tom's hand loosened but did not let go entirely. He watched her lids flutter as she gracefully avoided choking on the sudden rush of air back into her lungs. The press of her wand didn't ease nor did it move, but he felt the fingertips of her free hand trail blazing tracks of heat down his arm, over his wrist, to curl around and weave themselves through the ones on her neck.

"Will you have tea with me, Mister Riddle?"

The words were raspy from her hoarse, freshly strangled throat, but also uplifting and flawlessly polite as though she weren't just asking for tea, and possibly biscuits, with a man who had tried to kill her.

Tom relaxed his hold even further, releasing her neck and smoothing his hand, their fingers still interlaced, down to rest over her collarbone beneath the opened edges of her Oxford. He examined that entrancing stare up close – _truly_ examined it – for the first time, studying like he would the night sky to find it was nearly as endless. He fell completely into that turbulent gaze.

Her irises sparkled with shifting flecks of red, violet, gold, black, an entire world of color that burst in and out of existence like the very stars themselves. They held promises that were dark and bittersweet like the most sinful chocolate and called to him just as the unsavory hum of her unique magical notes had.

And he longed more than anything in that moment to own that darkness.

"You should call me Tom," he murmured much closer to her face than he'd recalled being moments ago, "after all I _have_ seen you naked." His wand left her cheek.

Hermione smiled – one that that crinkled the edges of her eyes and dimpled her cheeks – and her other arm moved back to her side.

"Would you have tea with me, Tom? I think we've much to discuss."


	13. Chapter 12 - Balance (Book I)

**12 – Balance **

May 1943 

"_Really_ Myrtle, how do you keep from setting your parchment on fire?"

The mousy girl flinched at the hard slam of Olive Hornby's palms hitting the table, followed quickly by two bodies sitting heavily on the bench on both sides of her as Olive launched right into her morning mockery.

"P-p-pardon?" Myrtle had been eating her own breakfast, dutifully minding her own business. She looked up to face the prissy-faced blond girl whose daylight hours rose and set like clockwork on the slurs and taunts she slung her way.

"When you're reading," Olive said as though it were obvious, then gestured towards Myrtle's spectacles. "Honestly, the lenses on those things are so big I'm surprised that more of your papers don't just spontaneously combust when you turn in their direction."

Myrtle flushed at the girl's comment, sinking as far into her hunched shoulders as she could while Olive's prissy little posse laughed a little too hard. She was thinking, trying to think past the hot pounding of her heart in her ears, surrounded by these harpies when another voice joined the mix.

"_Honestly,_ Olive," the smooth voice said from somewhere behind Myrtle's back, openly mocking the other female, "you would think that with your intimate familiarity of inanimate objects that you'd have learned by now it has so very little to do with the size of the object and so much more to do with how it is used."

Myrtle turned around cautiously, expecting an insult to be flung in her direction as well. But when she saw the ever strange Persephone Callaghan standing there with a neat cream colored pastry box in hand, weight fixed boldly on her forward leg with her hip jutting at an angle that merely said _"attitude"_ in her stance and her stare focused severely on the blond across the table, she understood the girl wasn't on the offensive – not towards _her,_ anyway.

Hermione smiled in a way that lent itself better to her older self than her young alias. She took delight in the way Olive turned red and began sputtering. The girls on either side of Myrtle stared between their leader and the girl at their back for any sign of guidance as to what they should do to quell the harshness of the thinly veiled insult.

The witch ignored them both and turned the smile down to Myrtle instead, lifting the lid of the box and holding it out to her. "Scone?"

Myrtle blinked at her. Then she blinked at Olive and company. A shy, nearly wicked smile found its way to her lips and she bashfully reached into the box to extract one. "Th-thank you Persephone." And it was for more than the scone.

Hermione nodded.

"W-well how would _you_ know?" Olive spouted suddenly, her voice loud and screechy in their portion of the Hall. "If _you're_ such an expert on 'size' _Per-sef-fo-knee—" _The exaggerated snark to each syllable of her name made Hermione roll her eyes. "What does that say about _**YOU**_?"

The blond looked immensely satisfied with herself in that moment, folding her arms and sitting upright with a stubborn, smug sort of look to her.

Hermione's head tilted to one side and she eyed Olive with interest. "If you are implying that I am a whore, I am afraid that I must disappoint. This body is woefully inexperienced, especially with anything as tasteless as the curious and awkwardly shaped items you keep in your bedside drawer." Olive's mouth fell open and she foamed like an angry spittling crab. "I would say, however, that I fancy myself more of a 'field tester'. And I prefer to prioritize quality over quantity."

It was at that time that Tom Riddle appeared with his confident saunter and laid a warm hand on the curly haired witch's lower back. "Pardon me, ladies. Persephone, are you ready for class?"

She began to smile and reply when one of Olive's cronies spat one last frantic insult in desperate defense of her leader.

"_Ruthie's Patisserie_? What's the matter, Callaghan? Family can't afford anything from a place with actual _class_? That place's pastries are awful and the owner is a right _loon._"

Both Tom and Hermione turned back to the witch that had spoken. Hermione's eyes darkened and if her spine stiffened in response, only Tom was close enough to notice. "You are…" She scrunched her nose in thought. "Mary Ann Crawford, correct?"

"Y-yes." The dark haired girl answered hesitantly, unsure how else she was to respond at the seemingly random question.

Hermione smirked, filing the information away for a later date. "Thank you."

Mary Ann was perplexed but Persephone didn't pay it any mind. She looped her arm around Tom's in a way that was a hair under "proper".

"Ready now, Tom."

Tom laid a hand over hers where it rested in the crook of his elbow and smiled politely at the Ravenclaws before their departure. "Ladies, have a wonderful day."

Myrtle watched the pair of them depart, munching merrily on her pastry and feeling quite good about the shades of puce Olive Hornby was turning in reaction to the sight of Persephone Callaghan and Tom Riddle walking arm in arm through the Great Hall.

**. . . . .**

"Clubfoot, may I borrow your knife please? I need to prepare the stalks but mine seems to have gone missing."

"Of course, Persephone. It would be my pleasure!"

Tom looked up from his cutting board and all of his uniformly cut ingredients. Mulciber was grinning foolishly from the next table over that he shared with Tarquin Nott to the witch at _his_. The woman called him 'Clubfoot' to his face and he smiled like an idiot because he thought she was teasing him in a way of fondness.

_If he only truly understood that she was making fun of him maybe he wouldn't have been so eager._

Tom went back to chopping, a little more firmly now, at the sight of them. "Perhaps you shouldn't be so lax with your belongings, Miss Callaghan."

Mulciber's grin dropped and he and Hermione turned their heads towards Tom. She gave him something of a challenging look.

"I'm sorry, Mister Riddle, I don't believe I was speaking to you."

Mulciber and Nott both tensed at her words.

Tom allowed a pleasant smile to curl his lips and he gave a handful of final, loud chops to sever the last of the rat tails he needed from their bodies. He took up a rag from his side to clean his knife and reached across his body to offer it to her hilt first.

"You weren't. However, seeing as how I have been charged with looking after you in both of the classes that we share through the end of this term, it is my obligation to…" His eyes wandered over her face, lingering on the way she was worrying the edge of her lip. "…fulfill any needs that may arise."

Hermione reached out to take the blade feeling the fingertips of his other hand brush over her knuckles as she closed her fist around the hilt. She put on one of her more smarmy smirks for him and the very air between them seemed to heat. "So my needs in Defense Against the Dark Arts were to be cut up like one of your rats and tossed into the furniture?"

Mulciber paled. He looked like he was about to say something to Persephone to perhaps warn her off from egging him on – Tom had been in such a foul mood during her absence, after all.

"Clearly." Tom's mouth edged into the beginnings of a grin and he replied teasingly. "You looked as though you needed a break that day. You are well rested _now_, are you not?"

She blinked at his question and then Hermione laughed, a delighted tinkle of sound. It was strange to hear such a bold thing in the presence of that particular wizard and, as such, it drew several looks from various parts of the classroom.

Finally withdrawing her hand from his, moving to gather her bundles of ingredients to chop and slice, Hermione turned her gaze down towards her work, only glancing up beneath her lashes once. "I _have_ had a very enjoyable set of nights most recently, Mister Riddle. I'd say they were quite…rejuvenating."

He didn't reply right away but she felt his stare on her. She was all the way through cutting her stalks and moving on to some worm root with the rat tails next when he spoke again. She felt a light touch to her temple brushing wisps of hair back behind her ear.

"Miss Callaghan—" He spoke softly for only them.

"Mmm?"

"Don't lose my knife, will you?"

"And what would you do if I did?"

"I would have you replace it, of course. After I illustrated for you, in great detail, what happens when I have to come after my belongings."

Hermione stopped her chopping and looked to the side through her lashes again to find him dutifully beginning his brewing. "_Fascinating._ Are you this possessive over all the things you presume to own?"

Tom heard something besides idle curiosity in her question and smirked knowingly. "I have been known to have a bit of a temper regarding things that _are_ mine."

"Good to know." She finished her ingredient preparations, cleaned his blade, and replaced it very primly at the side of his cutting board. "On the off chance that I encounter anything else that belongs to you I will know what to expect."

Something very close to surprise flickered across his features but Tom covered it by shooting an immensely displeased look her way. His scowl lingered on her profile and examined how airily she started adding powders and stalks to her base with the tiniest smile that served to do a great deal in angering him. He opened his mouth to say something else but felt the eyes of his minions on the back of his head and stopped, his jaw snapping shut with a harsh _CLACK_ and he turned a glare so heated onto his assignment it could have set the whole thing ablaze.

Mulciber was still standing, knife held awkwardly in his hand, halfway to having handed it to the girl. His uneasy stare slid between Persephone and Tom Riddle with things resembling confusion, astonishment, disappointment, and a whole mess of other emotions.

Nott finally moved in to spare the boy from further embarrassment and nudged Mulciber's hand back towards the table. "Put your arm down, Clubfoot."

**. . . . .**

"I was beginning to wonder if you'd show," Tom said blandly as he made to rise. Persephone put a hand on his shoulder, stopping him. He appeared perturbed at being stifled but remained seated as she set down her belongings at his side.

"Worried about me, Tom?"

The boys at the table look startled at hearing his given name from the girl, unsure that they ever had before that moment.

He resumed eating his lunch, ignoring the way the light press of her fingertips still left scorching spots of heat on his shoulder. "Only concerned as to where my anchor had gotten off to. You're late."

"Hardly," she scoffed while tying her hair up for the umpteenth time that day, unruly thing that it was. "I am here precisely when I mean to be, not a moment before, not a moment after."

"Of course you are." He shifted to look up at her where she was still standing and frowned. "Sit." Tom pointed to Abraxas - who had already left the standard spot open between the two of them for the girl – and motioned further down the bench. "Abraxas, move."

Abraxas was surprised at the command, so stunned in fact that it took him a moment to grasp the meaning of the words. He blinked to the space where Tom had pointed on the far side of Rosier. He was almost struck by an intense moment of idiocy and asked "why", but the witch between them spoke again instead.

"I'll stand, thank you. Feels better at the moment." She rubbed at her back as though she had an unpleasant ache. "S'been hurting since yesterday." Hermione gave him a pointed look.

"Perhaps you slept on it wrong," Tom said tartly, obviously displeased at the refusal. He nodded and went back to his meal, though not before shooting a look down the table at Abraxas, who blanched and moved to the spot previously ordered. Tom relaxed some when the boy had put more distance between himself and the witch.

"Persephone!"

Hermione's head turned at the call of her persona's name, eyes widening at the sight of the housemate crossing the room.

Tom looked up as well and controlled the scowl threatening to surface.

"Stefan. Hello."

Tom watched as the Ravenclaw boy joined them, encroaching on Persephone's space more than she – or _he_ – cared for. The boy was smiling at her and it sent a ripple of… _something_ down his spine; his hands clenched around his silverware.

Before Stefan could reply, Tom stood and greeted the boy with an outstretched hand, towering over the witch and eking out a handful of centimetres over the other boy. "Stefan, is it? Hello, good afternoon. I'm afraid we've not been introduced—"

Stefan smiled but it was a different sort of show of teeth full of all sorts of masculine posturing. "I know who you are, Riddle. Everyone knows who you are."

Hermione felt the rise in temperature at the dismissal and she placed her hand on Tom's chest, fingertips slipping beneath the edge of his lapel for a second to get his attention. Tom's dark eyes fastened onto her hand where she touched him, a very particular muscle in the side of his neck going taut.

"How may I help you, Stefan?" she asked cautiously, removing her hand.

Stefan glanced at the way she'd touched Tom Riddle, the way the boy _allowed_ her to touch him, mostly the way it lingered in an almost reluctant way when she retracted it and grimaced. "I've a package for you," he said, presenting a small pastry box he had under one arm. "It was separated this morning in the post somehow and Headmaster Dippet gave it to me not long ago to bring to you. He apologizes for its 'lack of freshness' he said, but he hadn't realized it earlier."

Hermione accepted the box with a raised brow but it was Tom that spoke over her shoulder. "How is it _you_ have come to be the messenger for Miss Callaghan. You're not a Prefect." The last was said with obvious disdain and a very pointed once over.

Stefan's smile faltered and looked to the witch in a way most of their housemates had been since her outburst the other night. "The Prefects must not have been available."

The witch frowned, her spine going rigid and eyes cold for a moment with the way he looked at her. Tom did not fail to notice this and was immediately both curious and annoyed that there was something afoot with this girl others knew about but he did not.

"Thank you, Stefan," Hermione said tightly. "How do you suspect it got separated like that?"

He shrugged. "The incoming post is always subject to confiscation and searches. It's more common with novelties and food—"

"Headmaster Dippet has a _tendency_, we'll say, to make it high priority to search food items coming in from certain locations," Tom said. "Unrelated, the headmaster also has something of a sweet tooth."

Hermione blinked at Tom. "Do you think he—" Her question was cut short when she opened the box and peeked in, seeing a few missing from Ruthie's typical dozen.

Tom did not miss her pleased look at the sight of the missing pastries nor how her posture relaxed when she noticed them absent.

"Well, that's fine then," she said finally. Hermione smiled too politely at her fellow Ravenclaw once more and held the box out to him. "Would you like one?"

Stefan brightened at the offer. "Oh yes, thank you! I _love_ Ruthie's. Thank you, Persephone."

"Of course." She nodded at him again after he took one, eying him carefully as he bit into it. Stefan smiled at her again and Hermione presented him with an equally warm smile before bidding him goodbye. He lingered only a moment longer after a set of silent glares were exchanged overtop her head between himself and the wizard looming at her back.

An amused snort sounded from the table, coming from Rosier. "Ruthie's? Isn't the owner a crazy cat lady?"

Hermione's attention slid over to the man who'd not even bothered to look up between his bites to address them. "I've not heard that."

"Really?" This time it was Nott who had taken to joining the conversation. "Well, I guess you _are_ new around here."

Malfoy nodded. "Ever since her father passed, I heard that she'd started to lose it. The pastries are pretty good though."

As each of his minions chimed in on the subject of the patisserie's owner, he watched the look on the little witch's face darken further. It was difficult to sense it, her hold over it much firmer than her last outbursts, but he could feel the stirrings of her anger in the air. This time it was he that reached out to her, palm fitting perfectly in the arch of her lower back.

The witch's head snapped in his direction and he caught her eyes while he drew the smallest circles there with a thumb. "Gentlemen, let us not spread dreadful rumours about women you don't know. I am sure the owner is a pleasant and lovely lady."

Hermione's jaw unclenched at his deliberate eye contact and she spoke on the exhale of a strained breath, calming herself. "Yes, she is." She turned back to the boys with one of her more saccharine sweet smiles in place. "Would you all like a pastry as well?"

Despite whatever nonsense they were inclined to spout about the pastry studio's owner, they all perked up at the offer and indulged. When she retrieved the box once more and turned back to Tom, who was still standing with her, his fingertips tracing patterns at her hip so very subtly, she spoke softly for just the pair of them. "Sorry Tom, all out."

Tom looked down into the open box and the desserts remaining before giving her a questioning look.

Hermione shook her head and shut the lid. "I'll ask Aunt Ruthie to send some fresh ones just for you and I."

"Splendid. I hope she is well, please send her my regards when you owl her."

She wrapped a small hand around his fingers to coax them from her side, stealthily avoiding the notice of his followers and giving them a little squeeze before letting go. "Of course. Though she might ask me for your autograph with how much she was gushing about your smile after she met you."

"It's easy to smile when someone is actually _pleasant_, Miss Callaghan. Perhaps you should take cues from your beautiful Aunt."

Hermione snorted and ran her hands over the decorative embossing on the pastry box a bit more fondly than she perhaps should have. "Perhaps."

**. . . . .**

"Alright class, time for drills!"

The professor closed her tome and waited for the students to pack up their bags before whisking her wand at the sets of desks and chairs in the room to clear the space. The furniture all stacked up neatly around the edges of the room and the students gathered in its center.

"Pick a partner! Let's get started!"

Rophelius' normally cold stare locked onto Persephone well before the order was given to pair up. He already had a taste of her skill and power days before and the pleasant prickle of her dangerous energy buzzing down his spine made things low in his gut clench.

The witch had been in a mental state of disarray and uncontrolled the last they'd dueled, but he hadn't stopped thinking about how sweet that magic of hers would feel on his skin if she'd been in a more focused state of mind – he liked when they fought back. Despite the unfortunate end to her last session in class, Lestrange wasn't fooled by her performance with his Lord. He knew Riddle had wanted to try his hand at her himself thanks to morbid curiosity if nothing else.

Rophelius had an inkling of the things the girl had to offer. He knew his master to be above such simple things as pleasures of the flesh, so he was hoping to sweep in and pick up what was left behind from his Lord's "purely academic" interests – as Slughorn would say.

It was with that thought still at the forefront of Lestrange's mind that he began plodding over to her, the anticipation clear in his expression.

It was unfortunate for him that he had been far enough out of earshot and eyeshot for him to miss the few heated exchanges that had occurred that day already between Tom and Hermione.

Hermione set her bag down near some of the other students' things and turned to see the large man standing, waiting for her; she fought the sneer threatening to emerge with surprising success.

"Care to pick up where we last left off, Callaghan?"

She forced a smile, her flesh prickling at the way Lestrange looked like he was devouring her with his eyes. "I'm afraid I've already committed to a partner, Rophelius."

He scoffed and moved closer anyway. "Who? Malfoy? He would let you whip him with his own prick just to have you lay your hands on him. He's no challenge for you. Come, witch, let me—"

"Concede your position to someone that is? Brilliant plan, Lestrange." Tom entered into their very private conversation with little fanfare, simply moving past the large wizard to the girl he was speaking to and began drawing her hair back into the high ponytail that it had freed itself from yet again between then and lunch.

Lestrange startled at his appearance and watched his master fastening Persephone's curls into place out of her way.

Hermione turned her head to the side to fix Tom with a glare for touching her so boldly without her permission, but he gripped her hair more firmly and whispered his low, rumbling caution.

"Trust me."

She huffed quietly, but turned her stare back to Lestrange.

"Rophelius—"

Lestrange's eyes darted up to Tom's face, a hopeful glint in his expression that fell immediately when he took in the fiercely dark look his master was sending his way.

"Go play with Malfoy, would you please?"

He shifted back, fist clenching around his wand but nodded, half bowing away. "Yes, Tom."

"And Rophelius," Tom called again loftily, catching him before he was too far, "Abraxas was sitting too close to Miss Callaghan at lunch today. Please address that for me as well."

"Yes, Tom."

Hermione watched the behemoth of a man find the blond and take up as his partner even as Tom's hands and magic danced through her locks. He must have charmed either his hands or her hair with the way he was running his fingers through it, gathering it all neatly and tightly without hitting a single snag or snarl in all of her curls; she shivered, not unpleasantly, at the sensation. Rocking back into his touch, unconsciously molding the line of her body to his, she never took her focused stare off of the bulky frame of Rophelius Lestrange.

Tom followed her stare studiously. "You despise him," he said at last, fastening her hair into place with one of his silk kerchiefs and some sturdy sticking charms.

Hermione waited until he was finished tying her hair up before she shook her head. "Someone very much like him."

"Back in 'New York'?" He leaned in before she stepped away and inhaled discreetly of her pleasing scent of florals, parchment, and something heady that he was coming to recognize as uniquely hers.

"Not New York," she said with a smirk, starting to walk away, _well_ away from what Tom had already claimed as his practice line.

Tom frowned, catching her wrist before she could get far. "Where are you going?"

"I _did_ already say that I had a partner."

It must have shown on his face, his distaste, because she turned back to him, twisting her hand in his grasp so that her fingertips played teasingly over his pulse point.

"It's Rosier," she said. When he didn't respond with more than his continued on-the-verge-of-exploding jaw twitch, she stepped towards him and cooed, "I asked him…after _lunch._"

Tom was still about to blow his top when he noticed the relaxed and _so innocent_ way she was looking at him, _waiting. . ._

_Rosier…Rosier…who was the first to speak ill of..._

Both a brow and the corner of his mouth quirked up in amusement and the tension in his shoulders bled out. He released her but didn't miss the way she allowed her touch to linger over his skin, much as she'd done before. "Not too much."

Hermione shrugged noncommittally with a tiny smile.

**. . . . .**

Tom skipped dinner and was packing several items into his satchel by the time the boys returned from their meal. He waited for the other students to disperse to their dorm rooms before hefting the bag onto his shoulder and addressing them all.

"I am going to the Room this evening, gentlemen. The typical precautions are in place for tonight; however, if questions as to my whereabouts should come up at any point later, I was here all night. Understood?"

The handful of them – minus Rosier who had an unfortunate backfiring of a spell occur in DADA that afternoon, landing him in Hospital for a week – all nodded with murmurs of _"yes, Tom"_ running through them.

Tom reached the far edge of the great mantle in the common room before Mulciber's prominent fidgeting annoyed him enough to stop him in his stride. "Mulciber, something is obviously bothering you so, instead of wearing a hole in the floor, how about you enlighten the group?"

The big man grimaced, his shoulders tensed in an almost angry fashion before slumping again, defeated. The answer should have been obvious, but at the same time, it had plagued him all day and he couldn't contain himself any longer. "Is she yours, my Lord?"

Tom tilted his head to one side at the query, turned back to face Mulciber and was silent long enough that the man started to wither under his stare. Tom studied him and the way he seemed to be resisting toeing the ground; more interestingly, he looked at the way all of them were shifting on their feet now, trying not to look like they were anticipating the answer.

Tom snorted. "She really did have her hooks in all of you, didn't she? Even you." He looked pointedly at Lestrange who met his stare only a second before diverting his gaze.

He shook his head in exasperation and continued on his original path out of the common room, not feeling the need to answer.

**. . . . .**

By the time Hermione reached the Room of Requirement, Tom was already there and waiting for her.

As she entered the Room, she found it looking particularly large yet somehow still cozy. There was a roaring fire in a grand hearth set into the wall facing the magical doorway. In front of it, Tom sat in one of two cushy looking high backed chairs, reading the book she'd left him nights before, and angled slightly away from where she stood. A quaint little tea set sat on a small round table between the two chairs. The Room was otherwise handsomely furnished with various pieces of classy and _expensive_ looking settees, cabinets, and bookshelves along with elegant iron sconces lining the walls.

At the sound of her entry, Tom glanced in her direction. "I see you found your way, if not a bit later than expected."

"As I have said before," she started, crossing to the empty chair and setting down her bag, "I am precisely where I mean to be, exactly _when _I mean to be there."

"Of course." Tom marked his spot in the borrowed tome and tucked it at his side. "In any case, how do you take your tea, Miss Callaghan?"

Hermione eyed him skeptically. "We are _really_ having tea?"

"Unless you'd prefer something else?"

"No, no…just, well, after our last couple of encounters I somehow expected something—"

"Less civil?"

"Indeed."

Tom chuckled and motioned to the chair across from him, though this time he did not get up for her, merely tracked her with his eyes as she came around and found her seat.

The witch eyed him, eyed the tray, and hummed. "Any biscuits?"

"Afraid not."

Hermione stared at him from her seat unflinching as he stared back. There was a long stretch of silence that passed between them, both of them seeming to be waiting for the other to say…_anything._ At last, it was Hermione that, trying to hide her chuckles behind primly pursed lips, asked, "Are we going to sit and gawk at each other all evening then?"

Tom shook his head, smirked. "I was waiting for you to begin. You _are _the one that invited _me_ for tea, are you not? Some things we needed to discuss and whatall."

Her cautiously amused mood faltered a bit at the way his tone hardened. "You sound perturbed," she said it as a quip, but watched him carefully. "I thought we were just starting to get along quite nicely."

He scoffed.

Hermione shrugged at that. "You've some things in particular you would like to address." Not a question.

"I do." Tom rose from his seat, pulling the book she'd left him along, and approached her. He did not miss the way her posture tightened at his proximity and allowed himself a slow, languid smile. "Perhaps, to start us off this evening, you could answer some questions for me."

She considered his words and even went so far as to accept her own book when he held it out to her. Hermione raised an eyebrow at that and looked to his face and searching eyes. "Considering that is really the entire point of this meeting, I would think that _is_ on the—"

"Miss Callaghan," Tom said, flipping open the book in her hands, "what are you doing here?"

Hermione blinked in confusion and slowly budding irritation at the idiocy of the question. "I'm fairly certain we just went over that to some degree—"

"_No."_ He stopped her with a hard, level, icy tone that he'd not used directly on _her_ but one that his minions were intimately familiar with. "I would like to know _how_ you got here and _what_ you presume that you are doing."

"I'm afraid I don't…" Hermione's sour look and matching tone faded when she followed Tom's stare to the pages he had his fingers on. When she caught the line of print beneath where his fingertips touched the parchment a sudden, very cold, pit settled in her stomach.

_Secrets of the Darkest Art__, penned by Owle Bullock, revision date: __**1973.**_

Hermione kept blinking at the blatant oversight, her dread turning into astonishment into a scowl.

She thought and re-thought over all her careful preparations.

No.

No, no, no, no, _**NO.**_

She was _**sure**_ she had looked for things like this when she'd sent herself back.

She _remembered_ that she'd scoured her belongings – quite thoroughly – to rid them of any damning evidence like this.

To make such an error, such an oversight! Why, it wasn't like her at all!

If the wrong individuals had gotten their hands on this. . .

The jumble of emotions warring in her gut was nauseating. A fear that she'd sworn off was crawling into her throat, onto her tongue, burning the backs of her eyes. Hermione had a million new thoughts, contingency plans, bursting into life inside her already muddled mind, but in that instant she was barely able to think beyond the anger at herself for such a grievous error.

Her hands trembled so lightly that the tome barely shook in her palms, but she could practically _feel_ the wicked smile on his face before he even uttered his next words.

"So, _Persephone_, I will ask you once more: where and…_when_ precisely are you from?"

* * *

**A/N:** Wow! Hello again! And WOW! Thank you everyone, SO much, for the pleasant feedback. I'm still very surprised at the traffic this story is getting and hope that it will keep most of you interested as it carries on. I've taken to calling this my onion story, if that gives any idea as to the craziness of the outline associated with it. Time travel. Like, whoa.

I just wanted to add a couple of notes again regarding the story universe real quick that's kind of come up in reviews and other comments:

Adulthood. There are various interpretations of it throughout different countries and with this being a time travel dealie-o, the age could change depending on what time period we're talking about. To keep my sanity and make sure we're all on the same page, 17 is the magic number. This is the age that The Trace breaks in this fancy Wizarding world, so this is the number that we're using...though technically, the characters currently are of consenting age to be engaging in hanky and/or panky, I'm just going to go with that.

Another thing that did come up is the fact that Hermione's fake mother is Muggle-born, yet Ruthie is a Pureblood. I think I actually typoed this in an earlier chapter and had gone back to correct it, but "Persephone's" fake mother was concocted as Ruthie's step-sister by marriage so really there is no blood relation at all between them and they were just one of those happy blended families. Hooray! I promise there is also at least a little plot device associated with the fact that her persona is also a Muggle-Born.

That's all I've got this time around. Thanks for reading!


	14. Chapter 13 - Breadcrumbs (Book I)

**13 – Breadcrumbs**

May 1943

"How long have you known?"

Tom was looking her over, examining every part of her that he could see with a great deal of interest. They _had_ been getting along quite well recently, and, while he didn't favor compromising that, the new possibilities of the origins of Persephone Callaghan were dangerous enough that he _would._

It was curious, however, why she would target him.

_Unless,_ he thought, _his plans had succeeded – or at least made a significant enough of an impact on the wizarding world to warrant it. Had she come back in time to stop him? If that were the case, why give him this book? And why, if she had been so clever up to this point, would she provide him with such a blatant sign of her origins? Was it a mistake? A trap? _So many questions…

It made _him_ exceedingly curious.

"That you are, apparently, a time traveler? Not long. That you were very-" He paused and tilted his head. He was quiet long enough that she looked up at him from beneath her lashes, though this time it was more murderous than sweet; he found he preferred the former. "-different – that I knew from the moment we met. You will understand my hesitation now about pursuing our budding…fraternization until after you have answered and addressed some of my questions and concerns."

"We had a budding fraternization?" She managed to snark with only a mild tremble of frustration in her voice.

"Don't play coy, Callaghan, it doesn't suit you," he tutted. "Every moment you spend pandering to those idiots, batting your lashes and flashing those coquettish smiles – it turns my stomach."

"Be still my heart, is that the telltale sign of jealousy?" Hermione wore her sarcasm like a shield, her mind screaming to figure her next step. She didn't get very far in the reworking of her plotting before she had a wand shoved against her neck, tilting her chin up more fully to see him.

"Jealousy is not an emotion that I entertain. It is already understood that you are my witch, Miss Callaghan—"

"I belong to _no one_ -"

"—and seeing how you are mine, you will do as I command and answer my questions."

Hermione's tongue traced the insides of her teeth as her temper flared. She reminded herself to be calm, reminded that she needed to keep a level head, that even though his wand was still less than likely to acquiesce to the command to kill her outright there remained a plethora of spells that could _hurt._

Glaring up at the boy who was so cocky, so _sure_ that he had her cornered in her own game this time, Hermione's hackles raised. She had spent what felt like a lifetime _hurt_ already...

A voice in her skull hummed, full of mischief and madness.

_What was a little more?_

"I have terms, Tom."

Tom snorted and pressed his wand more firmly beneath the hollow of her jaw.

"I believe you are mistaken about how this works, Persephone. If I have misread you then that is unfortunate, but perhaps you are still having trouble adjusting, so allow me to explain: I am _threatening_ you. Considering how far it seems you've come to see me, you may already know that idle threats are not synonymous with my name. I am afraid that if you do not comply with my demands I will be left with no choice to make you intimately aware of the consequences to your actions."

"I bet you say that to all the girls," Hermione smiled placidly past the sing song voice echoing in her mind.

_Comply…_

_Comply?_

_Let us comply._

The voice in her mind dripped with remnants of dark whispers and hisses from all the black magic tomes she'd frolicked through leading up to this point, and Tom's words drifted to a muted place where she could barely make them out, feeling only the steady _pum pum pum_ of his magic behind them.

"I enjoy you, Miss Callaghan. You intrigue me. But I have decided to claim you as my own and, as such, you must be brought in line with the rest of my living possessions. I do apologize, as it is not typical of me to torture women, but – well, I'm sure you can understand."

Hermione felt the insistent press of his wand again, urging her onto her feet. She thought the idea of standing only to be tortured into a writhing, blithering mess on the rug was a funny thing.

Then she remembered the last time she'd been tortured on a rug.

She was fairly certain her blood would never come out of that.

_Stained it forever._

_Stained the tile._

_Stained the rock._

_Tainted the whole-bloody-house._

The insistent pounding of her pulse in her ears spiked and she shut her book and set it aside. Hermione rose to her feet, following the guiding pressure of the wood in his hand. When he stopped her paces away from her chair in the center of that far-too-posh looking rug, she reached out to carefully run a hand over his chest, unsurprised when he allowed it.

"I am no one's possession, Tom Riddle," she said this lightly, voice even and cool under his intense scrutiny and apparent amusement. "I will answer your questions, if you will answer mine."

"You misunderstand _again_," Tom scoffed and sounded more irritated now. He caught her wrist mid-stroke and loosened the press of his wand - _Only because of the odd angle_,he told himself. "You will answer mine. End of. Or else I will—"

"Or you'll _**what**_?" Hermione's eyes glittered ferociously.

"What power is it you feel you actually _have_ over me, Tom? Will you steal the answers from my mind? I think we have already discovered that you will be getting all of _**nowhere**_ in there without me leading you by the hand. Will you take them from me by force? Well…you're welcome to try. I think you'll find that I have a surprising amount of stamina for torture thanks, in no small part, to _you._" She pressed her neck into his wand mockingly and her head tilted to one side, face very serious, studious almost, as her voice dropped to a low, sultry purr. "I know your taste. I know your style. I know the ways you would have people to bend and writhe and scream for you – I've lived it for _quite _some time at the hands of a woman that was truly and utterly yours. Your torture, the limited means that you have now, at this age, won't be _nearly _enough to rattle me."

Hermione pulled back slightly and she watched his attention flick from her eyes to her lips and back, curling her fingers around his lapel innocently.

"Will you _kill _me?" The grin that tilted her lips was positively wicked. "Bit counter-productive, that."

Tom's jaw clenched. The witch was either entirely devoid of fear or completely insane – he wasn't terribly sure that the two were mutually exclusive. "I'll expose you—"

"—with all of the _**nothing**_ that you know." She observed the way that he seemed just shy of ready to explode with fury and moved to place her second hand flat on his chest to pick up where the other had left off in stroking it. "No, you'll do nothing of the sort. Instead, you'll play a game with me."

With all the leverage he assumed he had ripped to shreds and lain before him, he growled and moved the grip from her wrist to her chin in fury and frustration. "I don't have the time for your _games_, Callaghan!"

And at that she laughed beautifully. "And I have _all_ the time in the world, Tom."

Disgusted at the nearly very literal truth behind her words, he released her, shoved her away fuming, snorting, and scowling like an old, ornery dragon; she was still chuckling as he paced a circle to cool his temper. "What bloody game, woman?"

Hermione smoothed her pinafore and drew her wand from a holster on her thigh beneath the skirt. She caressed the dark wood of the wand and hummed pleasantly. "A game of questions," she said it like it was obvious. "You have answers you want and so do I. It will be fun. Promise."

Tom gave her a look with an expression that was very blatantly and thoroughly asking if she was serious. When she merely smiled, he arched a brow, turned back to face her full on, and loosed the longest, most exasperated sigh of his entire lifetime. "Rules," he grit out.

"We will set a timer for ten—no, _fifteen_ minutes. Questions can be about anything and we both have to answer truthfully. For every hit you make on me—"

"Hit?"

"Yes, _hit_. Didn't I mention that part yet? This will be a duel."

The angry set to Tom's shoulders lessened and he perked up at the idea of finally slinging spells at the witch – particularly after a great deal of frustration on all fronts involving her stupid, bloody face…and other things. "A duel? Stipulations on the spells?"

She shook her head. "Anything." Hermione almost snorted at the dark glint in his eye at that. "Though I should remind you that trying to kill me, _if_ your wand would allow it in the first place, remains to be entirely counter-productive to your cause."

"Duly noted."

Hermione was skeptical about that. "As I was saying, for every hit you make on me, I will answer a question. For every hit I make on _you_, you will answer one of mine."

Tom scoffed at the latter half of the plan but nodded. "And what do I get if I win?"

"Win?"

"If I make you admit defeat well before the timer runs out."

"Mm…" Hermione curled her arms around herself and paced a small circle in thought. "What do you want?"

"You," Tom answered without a beat. At her raised brows he smirked. "Your obedience. You will be mine. _Publicly._ You will come when called. You will cower appropriately. You will be one of mine—" He gave her another once over with an appraising smile. "Albeit the prettiest of the bunch."

She blushed only a little and quipped, "Don't let Malfoy hear you say that."

A possessive flicker flashed through his gaze.

"You will be _only_ mine, in _ALL_ ways."

Hermione took in the hasty, eager sound of his demand, allowing a good long moment to take in the line of his back and the harsh way he was gripping his wand. At last, she nodded. "Alright. Fine."

Moving smoothly, as if he wasn't entirely too pleased by her acceptance, he asked dully, "And you? If you win?"

"A favour. You will owe me a favour that I can collect on at any time that I see fit."

"What kind of favour?" Caution was evident in both his voice and eyes.

"_Any_ kind of favour. I could ask you to treat me to tea. Or rub my feet. Kill a man by cutting out his tongue and allowing him to bleed to death." She shrugged. "_Anything_."

It was Tom's turn to scope her out, feel out the meaning and intent behind her portion of the terms. When all he found was that same, easy going, almost serene look, he scoffed. "Fine." _It wasn't as though she would win anyway._

"Perfect." Hermione clapped her hands together cheerfully and transfigured a shiny bauble from one of the well-stocked bookshelves into a neat little alarm clock and floated it onto the mantle. With another tilt of the wrist, she set the hands.

Tom took up a deceptively calm dueling stance, dark eyes watching every move she made sharply with intense interest.

Hermione took up her own dueling stance and nodded. "The timer is prepared, Tom, so as soon as you're ready—"

"_Diffindo!" _Tom shouted fiercely after a quick flick of his wand to the clock to begin the countdown.

Her eyes went wide at the sudden spell and Hermione barely dodged out of the way, taking a slice across her good arm. She summoned forth a shield, allowing her enough time to glare at the cut that had already welled with blood and was now staining another of her primly pressed shirts. Her glare snapped back to Tom and narrowed. "That's _cheating._"

Tom shrugged smoothly. "It's not my fault that you neglected to take advantage of the situation at hand, Miss Callaghan. Now, _when_ are you from?"

Hermione, still glaring, allowed a too cool, sly little smile to spread across her features. "The future."

"What _year?_" he snarled, rolling his wand in his palm threateningly.

"That's _two_ questions, Tom. And I'm afraid you have not yet earned the second one." She barely finished the taunt before sending a jelly-legs jinx in his direction.

The wizard deflected the cast with little more than a twitch of his wrist. "You're just being difficult!"

She shrugged and parried his next spell with a delicate flourish. "It's not my fault that you didn't further specify the terms before beginning the duel."

Hermione sent three more hexes his way in rapid succession: bat-bogeys, antler growth, tongue-tied hex, all of them juvenile and deflected, though with each one she cast, Tom seemed to grow more and more aggravated.

"Do not TOY with me!" Tom thrust his wand angrily at the witch._ "Everte statum!"_

The spell hit her shield with powerful force and pushed past it. Hermione's faint white barrier fizzled into nothingness and Tom's cast hit her full on, sending her blowing back towards a rather ancient looking suit of armor.

"_Arresto momentum!" _Hermione called with an amused lilt to her voice. Her perfectly shined dress flats skidded loudly along the Room's stone tiles, her legs shuddering with the force of the propulsion, but her spell stopped her just before she was to ram into the armor's pike and shield.

"What sorcery have you wrought upon my circle, Callaghan?"

She grinned at the more specific wording to his question. "The minds of your circle are simple and common and I have met their like before. Bending them to my will was not 'sorcery'—" Hermione chuckled. "Merely child's play." She rounded on him now, sending a handful more jinxes his way that had him huffing and puffing in outrage.

Tom parried her seventh jinx and exploded, "Do _NOT_ mock me, Callaghan! Do _**NOT**_ waste my time!"

"_Flipendo!" _Hermione smiled and jerked her wand arm out sharply at the chairs, table, and tea set where they'd meant to have their 'talk'. The furniture was sent shuddering across the Room towards Tom at a speedy rate.

It only served to infuriate him more and he raised his wand to snarl another _diffindo_, slicing each piece down its center and sending them whizzing past him like a wave breaking upon a rock. "I _told_ you—"

"_**OBLITERATUS!"**_

Hermione had waited until the pieces of chair and fluff and wood and porcelain went soaring past Tom on all sides before she called out her spell. The Room trembled with the power behind the command and the severed furniture burst violently into dozens of pieces. Chunks and splinters of the table and shards of fine dishware came at him as fast as bullets from a gun. Tom already had an array of cuts sliced through his uniform and his person by the time he called a gust of wind to deflect the rest.

Tom staggered, pressing his free hand to his opposite arm where a chilling cold and wet yet somehow stinging burn had started. He peeked beneath his palm and saw that it was smeared with blood. His previous level of fury was temporarily diverted by his astonishment.

"I will consider calling that even." She nodded towards the slices on his arm.

The words didn't quite register past the shock Tom was still in at the woman's utter shift in demeanor. She spoke in that strange, dark tone that had begged his attention whenever she let it slip and he now understood that it was quite deliberate. He wanted to hate himself for his continued fascination with her but he couldn't help but return his focus to her in amazement as she put forth her question.

"_Lasciate ogne speranza, voi ch'intrate_. Should our dear Abraxas find himself cast into the Inferno for his carnal intent towards that which you have claimed as yours-" She smirked and her brows ticked up suggestively. "-where might he find himself?"

"What?" He snapped out of his haze at the other boy's name. "What does Abraxas have to do with anything?"

Hermione clucked her tongue at him and sent a tickling jinx his way which he shielded against with a sneer. "It's not your turn yet, Tom. You must first answer my question!" At the deepening color to his neck and cheeks, she purred, "Where would your handsome toy find himself?"

Tom's eyes narrowed as she rephrased the question, tracking the movement of a pair of her fingers as they traced sensually over her mouth and across her bottom lip, dragging the plump flesh just enough so that it popped back to place in a pout. Those same fingers ghosted down her chin and neck, nudging the collar of her shirt until she found the knot of her tie and loosened it until it was very, _very_ low.

The image of Abraxas Malfoy wanking with this witch's hair scarf blinded him for the briefest of seconds, and when it cleared it left an angry red tinge to everything.

"Second." The words were more a growl than anything. Tom grit his teeth and cast at her again. "The second circle." _The lusty little blighter…_

"Very _good_, Tom."

_Block._

"You said nothing of riddles, Callaghan!"

_Cast, cast, parry, block._

"I didn't _not _say anything about riddles."

_Parry, parry, block, block, cast._

_This bloody WITCH- "CALLAGHAN!"_

_Cast, cast, cast, cast, cast. _

"And I _am_ a Ravenclaw, after all—"

"_**CRUCIO!"**_

Hermione's wand snapped up to defend against his Unforgivable and her eyes glittered with what could have been described as a purely feral heat to them. The air in the Room was suddenly thin, the flare of her magic stealing the oxygen from the very space around them.

"_Don't_ use that spell." Her voice was low, serious, and very clearly threatening.

Tom didn't miss the shift in her control at all and allowed himself a cruel, cocky smirk. "You _did_ say no restrictions on spells, did you not? There's nothing against the 'rules' about Unforgivables."

Her slow curl of her lips was anything but friendly and they peeled off of her teeth in a wholly animalistic fashion. "Oh, there's not. That one in particular, however, has a tendency to make me…exceedingly…angry."

"I've seen your anger," Tom scoffed, though they circled one another warily. He could see her haughty stance dissolving before his eyes in the face of a simple curse and, after the mockery she'd been making of him, latched onto it like a drowning man. "It was hardly impressive."

The laugh that left her at that was just as low and slow as the venomous stare she was fixing on him. The hollowness of it caused even _him_ a moment of hesitation.

"_Oh, _Tom. You haven't the slightest idea what my anger even looks like. It is not something one lives through to speak about." Her head tilted to the side and the swirling mess of magic in her stare intensified as she snapped another spell at him that he dodged. Hermione sneered. "Remind me to show you the memories of what happened to the last pair that tried to 'own' me."

His jaw tightened but his haughty façade didn't falter. The blatant implication behind her words intrigued him – Salazar save him. The woman was so much more than he had anticipated; it was twisting strange things in his chest. She was so much more than intriguing, _so much more_, and when he saw her there, on the other end of the Room, leaned forward in a hunch, shoulders tensed like an animal about to ravage him with all that dark magic just wafting off her skin, he just wanted to…

Tom returned her sneer and waved his wand at his worst cuts, willing them to mend before taking his stance up once more. "Please excuse me if I have a difficult time believing _all_ of your tales, Miss Callaghan. You don't exactly have the best track record for honesty." He snapped his wand arm at her once more. "_CRUCI—"_

"_FUNDATIO SCHISMA! DEVOVARE!"_

One moment, Tom's magic had been pooling at the tip of his wand, waiting for the close of his flourish and the final syllable to fall off his tongue, and the next, the stone beneath him ripped itself apart under his very feet. He had no time to think on it before the slabs of rock snapped up around his legs, clamping around them like the teeth of an iron trap and digging into his flesh.

Tom's shout of surprise and pain was still ringing out when the cold hiss of her next question leaked from her lips.

"Of the undkindness of ravens, she hangs lowest of the lot. Look to the place where her refuge is sought." She twisted her arm, commanding the slabs to tighten _just_ a bit more. The look in her eyes was positively murderous. "What do I speak of?"

Tom gathered his senses beyond the significant pain shooting through his legs and growled his own spell. His magic ripped the pieces of stone from their places and sent them exploding outwards from the slight crater he now stood in with dangerous velocity. The mad witch barely dodged one of the largest of the projectiles and he stepped toward her shakily on his injured limbs.

His outrage at her actually landing blows on him was swiftly eclipsed by the fact that she'd not only _landed _them, but that they _hurt_ as well – _quite a lot_, at that.

It was as he staggered forward that the searing, pinching, throbbing pain allowed Tom to identify that Persephone Callaghan may have actually managed to fracture both of his legs.

He must have been quiet longer than he'd realized in his haze of pain and confusion, because she smiled at him in that patronizing way she did and asked, "Stumped Tom? Come on now, where does this one go running to when confronted with something decidedly frightening—like her shadow?"

"Callaghan—"

Tom's growl rolled over her skin –_ music to her ears_ – and she flung another juvenile thing his way; he parried and approached her with a strangled noise. "Here, I'll even give you a hint." Hermione flipped half of her hair over one shoulder and used her free hand to touch her fingers together to make a large ring that she held over one of her eyes. "Pigtails, glasses, alone and _sniveling_ all the time-"

_Cast, block, cast, cast, parry._

"—paltry excuse for a Ravenclaw—"

Tom could barely think past the ache in his limbs and the blood rushing in his ears.

It had been an exceedingly long time since he'd been so embarrassingly brought to heel, and by a _woman_ no less!

He was bleeding.

He was limping.

He was breathing as if he'd just run fifty marathons in succession.

That he had underestimated her from the start was for certain. She had baited him with her childish tricks and he'd fallen for it, just as he'd fallen for a great deal of other things involving one Miss Persephone Callaghan. He hadn't taken her for more than a pretty set of eyes with ambition, even after he'd learned about her being from the future. He'd been so preoccupied with wallowing in his ego that he neglected to see her for the truly dangerous _thing_ she was.

He – _Tom Marvolo Riddle_ – had been _wrong_ about something.

Tom's mind was so fuzzed, attention and focus so frayed in the face of the mysterious witch. That he was struggling to maintain enough of a reign on his temper to formulate more than incoherent snarls and wild gesticulation with every infuriating quirk of her brow, or tilt of her lips, or low, sultry chuckle.

Hermione had stopped flinging her teasing hexes his way and resisted the grin when he didn't immediately launch into another series of his dark magic spells. He was eying her warily, wand arm stiff and straight but his knuckles gripping his wand so tightly that it was starting to tremble.

"Where is the girl's refuge? Here, allow me to help you further. Her name rhymes with _urt—"_

"The lavatory," Tom answered finally through gritted teeth, eyes blazing with his fury. "The girl you speak of is Miss Warren and her refuge is the _lavatory._"

_How DARE she patronize him?!_

Even in the midst of their duel and its chaos, along with the rapidly growing debris in the room, he was smart enough to answer her bloody _riddles_!

"_Good_, Tom!"

The patronizing lilt in Hermione's voice sent him into another tizzy and his wand was flashing out more and more insistently at her in between his encroaching, hobbling steps. Each of her shields, though, was perfect and impenetrable and served only to make the red color in his cheeks spread throughout all the rest of him.

"I will sear that shite eating smile off of your bloody FACE!" Tom shot another handful of spells at her, all blocked or dodged or parried, and he stumbled towards her even more menacingly than before.

"You should really fix that, Tom. _EPISKEY!_"

The witch waved her wand at him and he had thrown up his defensive shield, only to have the friendly spell whizz right through it at full velocity and hit both of his legs dead on. The injured and splintered bones snapped back into their proper places, sending what felt like fire through every bit of his body at the end of his howl of pain.

"A wild stallion tamed, high spirits brought low, an end to silence, ground churned to sow—"

"That DOES NOT count! That was a healing spell!" he roared between casts.

"There is nothing in the rules saying what sort of spell it had to be," Hermione chirped, sounding much less incited than she had moments ago. "How have these things come to be?"

"They have been broken! _JUST AS I WILL BREAK YOU!_"

Tom willed the objects surrounding the witch to combust and explode, showering her with flaming debris that she dodged and whisked away with the snap of her wrist. He ignited everything, all the books, the shelves, the furniture still surrounding her, _everything_ and commanded it all to shard and fly straight at her smirking face. The woman flourished and twirled, tumbled and dove intermittently between sending her magic to intercept the chunks soaring towards her head. She was beauty and death and so, so, _so_ very dangerous, but all he could see was RED and that damned sure smirk she still wore.

_Rip it off of your fucking FACE—_

Several more flaming pieces of rubble crashed down around her and Tom pushed his magic in a mimicry of the _obliteratus _she'd used before. His wand movement was not precise and there was something else he might have missed but the debris exploded into a shower of flaming rain that surprised her and set her uniform and her hair alight – he took his question.

"Impertinent witch! It's no wonder you've endured torture by my will if you've always been so infuriating! Tell me, what did you do to deserve my wrath?"

Hermione was putting out the tiny fires in her hair and skirt and coughed through all the risen dust and smoke. "I tried to stop you."

_To stop me._

Which meant he was successful!

The girl _did_ come to alter his plans.

The thought made him simultaneously eager and outraged that anyone would dare try to stop him. It was on the tails of his adrenaline high that he was able to take another hit on the witch while she was still tending to her singed skin.

"And how do you intend to stop me _now_, Callaghan?"

"Oh Tom—" Hermione disintegrated the next several chunks of flaming wood at her, the cinders falling around her like gently wafting snow. "I don't. _SERPENSORTIA!_"

Tom watched an impossibly long black viper slither free from the tip of her wand. The thing reared back, hood open and twitching as it bared its fangs at him. He scoffed, nearly chortled even, at the sight of a snake attempting to attack _him._ "For being from the future and suffering at my hand, witch, you are woefully uninformed if you think _this_ will hinder me!"

The viper slithered aggressively towards him, head poised and ready to strike, but Tom merely fixed it with a commanding stare and hissed at the thing, causing it to jerk to a stop as if _it_ was surprised.

"_Stop,"_ Tom spoke, the Parseltongue smooth and easy from his lips. _"Strike not at me, but the wench so foolish as to try to command you._"

Its pointed head cocked to the side in a way that reminded Tom much of the woman he'd been fighting. Tom couldn't help but entertain the thought that the witch's frizzed out hair was also something like its hood, making her all puffed up and large and warning other creatures away from her wrath. It was with this thought that he'd calmed some and even spared a chuckle. He was now confident that he would have the upper hand and have her yield before the last delicate minutes of their timer ran out. Though he still felt the roiling beneath his skin, offended by her resistance on principle, it had intensified his desire to own her a hundred fold_._

The viper didn't take much time to debate on the complexities of the idea that it was simply being commanded by a different magic user and had turned back to focus on the witch instead.

"Come, Callaghan," Tom started confidently, "time to—_**NO!**_"

He couldn't even finish before a series of loud bangs rattled the Room and a handful of fat yellow canaries exploded from the woman's wand to soar in a strike path straight for his commandeered snake. The chubby little birds were pecking and chirping merrily as they dove for the serpent's eyes and went about trying to peel away all the scales from its back.

Hermione was nearly bent at the waist with laughter. "Look Tom! It's just like you and I."

"_ENOUGH of your bloody games!"_ Tom roared, his outrage at her competence and mockery of him finally overwhelming all of his senses. He vanished the snake and exploded her birds, then thrust his wand toward the fireplace. With a hissed spell that had the flames in the hearth crack loudly and swell, he jerked his arm in her direction and fire spewed forth from the stone box. It twisted and twined through the air, igniting that too expensive rug beneath their feet and any bit of furniture or rubble that was foolish enough to be left lying in the way.

Hermione gasped first at the ferocity behind his movements. He was well and truly beyond his tether – at last. She laughed, too delighted at the display of his frayed temper, and barricaded herself behind a shield. "But I thought we were having _fun_, Tom." The taunt was decidedly jovial with how it had to come from between her clenched teeth as she dug her feet in and braced herself against the incessant hammering of his magic against hers. Her entire frame vibrated from the force of his will, the thrill of all of that dark power causing her flesh to prickle.

"You will _PAY_ for your disrespect, girl! I will show you what happens when you do not take a duel with Tom Marvolo Riddle seriously!"

_Thirty years of life._

_Ten years of saturation in the darkest spells the Lestranges could concoct._

_Timeless hours more spent romping through time to study and learn and prepare for a life so wholly different than that she had lived before._

_All against the burgeoning and stupidly cocky 16-year old Dark Lord…_

_It was almost unfair._

Her laugh was musical.

It was eerie and surreal.

It did things to the air once more as she released those careful walls she had shuttered into place around parts of her mind that held the remaining darkness and _all_ the knowledge of her Elder self.

"Show me then. If you think you can."

Tom growled and redoubled the pressure of the stream of fire pounding into her shield. He saw her body trembling behind the strain of holding it back and increased it even more with a hungry intensity.

It was then that he saw her lips move, and though what she uttered was lost behind the roar of the flames he was able to guess when she dissolved her barrier and the fire flared past her, engulfing her small body. He had a moment of shock, unable to compute that she'd willingly set herself aflame, but it fizzled out when he saw her standing amongst them all like the goddess of the Underworld herself, smiling pleasantly behind the flame freezing spell. Her arm shot out more quickly than he could make sense of – the sight of someone on fire and perfectly fine, still surprisingly jarring if you'd never seen it before – and her next spells hit in what were the longest seconds he'd experienced in his life to that point.

Tom flinched reflexively when her magic rolled through him but then realized that no pain had followed. In fact, he found that he felt _better_, he could breathe much more easily all of a sudden. That's when he noticed the magically created bubble warbling around his head. The witch was staring at him, straight _into_ him it felt like, and she'd yet to lower her arm.

The wicked smile on her face made his stomach drop.

"_DIMINUENDO!"_

Tom's eyes went huge as the charmed oxygen giving bubble shrank down dramatically, taking with it all of its precious air. It was only as the thing had suctioned itself tight to his head, blocking all of his airways and pressing down around his skull in a way that only magic _could_, that he finally broke his concentration on the flames surrounding Persephone and they dropped away suddenly.

He was clawing at the thing, finding it resistant and rubbery and deceptively hardy for a bloody _bubble._

Bursts of color popped behind his eyelids and his thoughts shut down to only those of frantic survival.

He gasped and choked, but the damned bubble would just suck down into his throat and he was suffocating – Merlin, bloody _HELL_, she was using a fourth year charm to KILL him.

And suddenly it was gone.

And he was heaving labored breaths while on his knees, fingers curled into the wrecked stone floor.

And the Room was dark and cold and _silent_.

He could feel her power there thrumming like a steady beating bass drum but he couldn't pinpoint her. Her magic was _everywhere_.

Tom shuddered and coughed, still trying to get enough oxygen back to think and to _move_. And perhaps that was what got him, or perhaps it was because she was still toying with him – _had_ been toying with him the entire time – because he was shoved by a violent thrust of magic into the nearest wall.

A series of foundation shuddering explosions sounded from the hearth and the sconces lining the walls. Light flooded the Room, cracking into existence like bolts of lightning, only they lingered at the sources in the form of steadily flickering bluebell flames.

Tom's eyes focused on the perfectly placid, pleasantly sweet expression of Persephone Callaghan, only centimetres away from his face and he felt one of her hands at his throat and the point of her wand at his temple.

"I haven't come here to stop you, Tom, I came to here to help you. I came here to secure my future as something _much_ more than a prized slave."

Her voice sent all his nerves buzzing.

"I want you to think of our game…"

Her breath was dancing over his skin and it was almost as if her eyes were illuminated from something more than the blue light of the Room.

"You've thought of it?"

Tom nodded his lie. His hand was moving of its own accord, seeking out the source of the dark power flooding the room and his senses and _everything,_ the urge to just _touch_ it as suffocating as the simple spell that could have ended him_-_

"Now… tell me, where is the entrance to the Chamber of Secrets?"

His hand stopped, stiffened where it had started to creep into her hair and his entrancement faded, his vision cleared, his _understanding_ surfaced in the wake of it all.

Tom thought on the rough locations he'd narrowed the Chamber's location to.

He thought of the places he'd wanted to explore but had been woefully unable to thanks to the distractions of a certain Persephone Callaghan.

He did as she bade earlier and thought of their 'game'.

_..I came here to help you…_

He thought of his answers to her seemingly ridiculous and arbitrary questions.

He thought on it for several heartbeats and finally his look of bafflement morphed into a sly and knowing grin when he put all the pieces – _all the __**clues**__ – _she'd given him together and compared it alongside the memory of his notes.

Hermione watched the tension in his body lessen, saw the knowledge present itself in his eyes as he returned them to her own stare, and removed her wand from his skin. She caught the edge of her lip between her teeth and spoke softly in a different sort of teasing whisper than she'd used all evening.

"See? I told you it would be fun."

The growl that escaped him was hungry and savage and unmistakably possessive. The thought of _'this bloody WITCH'_ echoed in his skull even as he was crashing his lips to hers.

_This fucking brilliant bloody witch._

* * *

**_A/N: _**_Lasciate ogne speranza, voi ch'intrate = _Abandon all hope, you who enter here. The ever famous line from Dante's Inferno.

I wasn't going to post the next update quite so soon, but after the surprising amount of negative reactions to the last chapter via review and PM, I mostly wanted to have a thing to add an A/N onto. In case anyone wasn't playing along, _several_ people actually messaged me to inform me that they were going to write off this story basically because of the one scene in which Hermione apparently fucked up and made an obvious mistake. A mistake that was a little _too_ obvious. (And maybe a little _too_ Raph.) How could she be so clever up to this point and make such a ridiculous error?

Perhaps it wasn't an error at all.

Perhaps someone else _KNEW_ and sabotaged her.

Those people that stopped reading will never know now.

Oh well!

You'll know if you feel so inclined to continue reading. I did say - just last chapter at that - that this was probably going to be a 40-50 chapter long story. The plot may actually be a little more complicated than "oops I didn't check my publication date on the super evil text I gave the future Dark Lord". Just saying.

Also, this is not a Victim!Hermione story. This Hermione is a force of nature and she earns her title as Queen of Hades, both the man and the place.

_"They've kept the truth_  
_about Persephone a secret,_  
_burying it deep below_  
_Hercules's murdered wife_  
_and all of Zeus's affairs._  
_It's dangerous, you see,_  
_a spark threatening to_  
_ignite a long dead flame._

_Power._

_She loved her power,_  
_the Queen of the Dead,_  
_to forever reign_  
_in the fires of hell._  
_She wore her crown_  
_like a beacon;_  
_a beautiful queen,_  
_plotting against her king._  
_They never wanted you_  
_to know the hunger of Persephone,_  
_how she starved for something_  
_other than pomegranates._

_Control._

_The primal thirst_  
_that burns all women's throats,_  
_denied by eons of men._  
_Listen closely to the voice from hell, sweetheart._  
_"You are a queen;_  
_don't wait for a king."_

_― Emily Palermo_


	15. Chapter 14 - Control (Book I)

**14 – Control**

May 1943

She tasted like power.

Her hair was so soft and smelled like irises – who _actually_ smelled like irises?

Her skin was soft too, so pliable under his touch.

She was a kind of tantalizing heat that he just wanted to sink into, to wrap around himself, coil every bit of himself around and never leave.

She was bloody _maddening_ is what she was.

Tom Riddle leaned against the wall, arms crossed, ankles crossed, _looking_ cross, as he stared at the staircase leading to Ravenclaw tower. He'd given up on the idiot door knocker and was now simply waiting for the witch – _his_ witch, he told himself – to appear for breakfast. He thought about their night in the Room, about the marks she'd left on him from their duel…mostly he thought of how much he'd wanted to fuck her into the wall after it was over.

He'd gotten lost in his thoughts and perked up at the sound of footsteps on the spiral stairs, scowling inwardly at his own eagerness. Tom was almost immediately disappointed when he saw the dull, dingy sets of dress flats appear in his line of sight, knowing well before the witches came into view that neither was the one he was waiting for.

As expected, two girls, neither of which were Persephone, emerged. He'd come off the wall at the anticipation of the witch and was less than discreet about his staring, earning him a set of funny looks from the Ravenclaws.

"Ladies," he greeted casually as though he absolutely was _not_ lurking outside the eagles' nest.

They murmured awkward greetings and continued on, eyeing and pointing at him strangely as they walked past.

Tom was certain he heard the word "crazy" muttered at least once and, if he wasn't mistaken, it was not referring to him.

**. . . . .**

"Bloody stupid…rat's nest, nonsense—can't have sensible hair—stupid bleedin' shirt—this bloody _**shirt**_. AUGH!"

Hermione was in the corner of her dormitory still fumbling with dressing for the day. It was well past the time she would normally have sauntered down to breakfast and she just couldn't – she _**couldn't**_ – get anything to _**work**_.

Her hands smoothed over her pinafore once, again, and again, and _another_ time, then once more before she was curling her fingers into her skirt and wrinkling the pleats angrily. At her wit's end with that part of her uniform she went back to trying to tame her forever untamable curls.

She tugged at her locks.

She combed her fingers through them snagging a dozen tangles.

She yanked at them.

She picked up one of her wide toothed combs and went to work on them that way instead.

She snagged all the tangles again and snarled, ripping the thing from her hair and throwing it angrily across the room, successfully chasing the remaining girls out of the dormitory with a series of squeaks and squeals.

**. . .**

_He crushed her mouth to hers and she gasped._

_She'd known what she was doing, baiting him like she did, yet somehow the actual feel of his kiss was still a shock._

_The Dark Lord._

_She was actually kissing Lord Voldemort._

_He took her surprise as an opportunity and slipped his tongue past her lips, gliding it along the sensitive inside of the swollen flesh and causing a frightful assortment of feelings to ripple through her._

_Pleasure._

_Lust._

_Fear._

_Loathing._

_Seething, unadulterated hatred._

**. . .**

Her hands shook as she fumbled with her tie.

Over.

Around.

Under.

Through.

_SHITE._

She loosened it, readjusted the length on her left and started again.

Over.

Around.

Under—_**FUCK.**_

She ripped the fabric from her neck, balled it up, and launched it across the room in a different direction from her comb.

**. . .**

_It was part of the plan, she reminded herself. _

_It was all part of her plan._

_His fingers curled in her hair and she felt him change their positions to press her hard against the wall of the Room._

_His hips pressed to hers and she felt him, thick and hot and hard – __**ready**__ for her and only a few thin layers of clothing away._

_All part of the plan._

_Part of the plan, Hermione._

_He traced his hands over her body appreciatively and murmured something low and gravelly in her ear._

_Power. _

_It was always about power._

_He wanted it, wanted to own it, own __**HER**__._

_It was about her and how she smelled like it._

_How she tasted like it._

_How he wanted to see if she __**felt**__ like it too._

_How he was going to bury himself inside of her and find out._

_How he would have her screaming for him._

**. . .**

She smoothed the pleats of her uniform.

She swept her hands back over her hair.

Her fingers danced over the buttons of her blouse, hovering at her collar, tugging at it because it was too fucking _TIGHT._

**. . .**

_Her arms were looped around his neck, fingers threading through his hair and her breath coming in short, anxious pants._

_For as much as he wanted to immerse himself in her, her own heart was hammering in her ribcage at the press of his magic. _

_He was a sinful pleasure with his own special signature that thrummed in harmony with that which pulsed through her veins. _

_He didn't have to be in her head for him to be drowning her senses. _

_From the moment he'd snapped, no longer holding back anything that he had to offer, the signs, the scent, the crackle of the magic of the Dark Lord she'd once known had surfaced and threatened to consume her in a way she'd never considered before learning what she had to do._

_It stroked along her skin, raising hairs and sending shivers of want and need through every part of her being._

_It made a telltale heat pool between her thighs and, as if he knew exactly what she needed, he pressed harder against her hips, moving them in a slow, arduous grind. She ripped her mouth free from his, her head knocking back against the stone with a moan of his name._

_His hands guided her arms up above her head, sliding along them, up, past her elbows, up, over her forearms, up still, to her wrists. He stole her breath in another kiss, sucking her lower lip between his teeth._

_He released the plump pink flesh in favor of kissing and nipping his way over her jaw, down her neck and up to growl raggedly in her ear. "I knew," he murmured between his grinds and kisses, "From the moment you ripped me from your mind… I had to have you. I've been waiting too long for this—"_

_She tensed at his words._

_Rodolphus Lestrange's last words echoed in her ears._

'_I've waited so long for this. . .'_

**. . .**

Hermione tugged so hard on her collar that several of the buttons to her shirt went flying.

Her skin glistened with a thin layer of sweat and she moved to swiping at _that_ angrily instead.

'_I've waited so long for this. . .'_

Her fingers curled and started digging into the skin over her collarbone.

'_Naughty little thing, my Mudblood. . .'_

Her head ticked to the side with an involuntary twitch trying to shake the memory of her former master from her skull.

**. . .**

"_Persephone…" _

_He drew the skin of her neck between his teeth._

"…_you infuriating…"_

_A moan fell from her lips._

"…_insufferable…"_

_He bruised the flesh._

"…_brilliant little witch…"_

_She couldn't hear past her own breathing._

"_Look at all you've done here…just as a frolic—Merlin, it's so beautiful."_

_The image of him in the flickering blue light fuzzed and blurred beyond her lidded gaze and lust addled brain but the cold chill down her spine lingered._

"_I want this." _

_He'd buried his face in her hair and in his slow rolling grinds moved to cover her body firmly with his own. Something dark began to bleed into her vision the harder he pressed, the more he made to dominate her physically._

"_I want ALL of this," he murmured. "I'll admit my defeat, but I still want you, Persephone."_

_Tom's hands fastened hard around her wrists._

"_I want you to be MINE."_

**. . .**

'_You're mine now.'_

Hermione's concentration stuttered and the magic holding her glamours in place fizzled away.

She saw her reflection in the mirror and watched the peppering of bites and bruises bloom back into existence on her neck.

'_All mine now.'_

She shut her eyes against the voice and could see her dead master's rotten smile behind her lids.

"Stop," she muttered.

Her head twitched to the side again.

'_I've fixed you. You're all MINE now.'_

Her hands found their way to her abdomen.

Her fingers curled into her uniform, the sharp pressure of her nails tracing over every single spot where the scars should be.

_Where they WOULD be…_

The skin of her belly itched…

…it _burned._

'_My pretty little Mudblood.'_

"Stop," she growled.

'_Every night, you'll be mine. My pretty little Mudblood.'_

Her right hand clamped over her left arm.

"Out."

She shook her head again, more of a tick again than anything controlled.

'_If you don't behave I will fetch Rabastan. You know how HE likes to play.'_

Her shoulders spasmed at the sensory memories of all the crucios that had ever passed through her nerve endings.

"Get _OUT._"

'_. . .pretty little Mudblood. . .'_

Her fingers dug into the scar beneath her left sleeve and, eyes clenched tightly, she tried to will the glamour back into place.

The mirror before her began to tremble.

"Shutter…" she mumbled.

_Mudblood._

She could feel the scar.

A light _crack_ sounded from the looking glass.

"Shutter the thoughts…" Her words were tight, frantic.

_Mudblood._

She could _hear_ it.

_Mudblood._

'_. . .mine now. . .'_

She could hear him.

'_Filthy little Mudblood whore!' Her Mistress screamed.  
_

Hear _her_.

'_Naughty little thing. . .'  
_

Hear them _ALL._

The mirror shuddered.

Fissures formed in the glass, they spread, spider webbed.

"Sh-ssh-shutter the thoughts…" Her jaw clenched so hard it was trembling, she was trembling. _Shaking._

_Mudblood Mudblood Mudblood._

It was _SCREAMING._

_Her back bowed off the ground._

_The walls in her mind cracked._

_They were crumbling._

_She was screaming. _

There was so-much-_SCREAMING._

'_My precious little witch.' _

**. . .**

"_You know my ambition."_

_Tom's breath was hot on her neck._

_But it was part of her plan._

"_You know I will win."_

_His proximity was suffocating._

_All part of the plan._

"_Place yourself in my hands."_

_The grip on her wrists was strangling._

_Stick to the PLAN, Hermione._

"_Belong to me and we can ravage the world."_

_He was too close. _

_Too much._

_There was too much._

_He was too much._

_It wasn't going to work._

_This part of the plan __**wasn't**__ going to work._

_Her breath hitched and Tom exhaled fondly, cluelessly, into her curls. "Persephone, my precious little witch." _

_Her head lolled back and that dark __**thing**__ took her over entirely in that moment, mouth turning to a feral snarl as her magic exploded._

**. . .**

The mirror in front of her exploded into a shower of shards.

Countless pieces of jagged glass rained down around her, deftly missing her shivering frame as the destructive magic recognized its source and veered them all away.

Hermione trembled from the center of the pile of debris, chest heaving, shoulders shaking. Her stare was stuck on the sallow, sweating, and withered reflection that blinked back at her from the few remaining chunks of glass that remained in their splintered frame.

Her eyes, wide and haunted, fixated on the curls sticking to her sweat drenched cheeks.

She heard a faint screaming coming from the glass.

Hermione's gaze darted to one of the large shards still wedged into the frame and saw movement. She scrubbed at her face, squinched her eyes shut so tightly she saw stars behind her lids then reopened them.

She saw it again.

Leaning in, Hermione saw her reflection, but not just her reflection, she saw it screaming. Her young self was in the shard, shouting and crying and pounding at the glass as if she were trapped inside. It snarled at her. _Let me go!_ It said. _RELEASE ME! _She growled. _LET ME OUT!_

Hermione dug her fingers into her curls, hunching away from the screaming girl inside the mirror and trying to drown her out.

But then she heard laughter.

Against her better judgment, Hermione peeked up from beneath her lashes and followed the sound. Another shard showed, again, her reflection, but she appeared more haggard, more _mad._ Dark circles had inked themselves beneath her eyes and her once lustrous curls hung loose and limp and impossibly long, as if she'd not had a haircut in ages. This Hermione laughed. She laughed and she laughed and she laughed.

_Useless._

_Weak._

_I should have known you wouldn't succeed._

_Can't even—_

_**HERMIONE.**_

Her attention snapped to another corner of the mirror, expecting to see another version of herself cackling and taunting her, but when she looked all she saw was a swirling black darkness. This shard, the largest of the ones that remained in the frame, hummed with energy.

_**HERMIONE.**_

She swallowed.

She ignored the other visions of herself that were still screaming, still taunting, still mocking her…

_**The world will be yours…**_

She swiped the sweat away from her forehead and cheeks and whimpered against the heavy beating pain pounding behind her eyes with every heartbeat.

_**Just a minor setback…**_

That voice was much more pleasant than the others.

_**All will wither beneath your gaze…**_

It was still loud, though.

_**They will tremble and cower in your presence…**_

…much too loud.

_**Just a setback…**_

Hermione covered her ears against the seductive purr but it wriggled past the barriers of her palms with insulting ease.

_**Such a fine queen you will be…**_

The sweet words licked a path down her spine, spreading heat and strength and _confidence_ back into all of her limbs.

…_**a setback…**_

She opened her eyes and within that swirling darkness a pair of fiery ingots stared back at her.

A laugh, much more musical and less mocking, tinkled through her skull.

_**Simply damming the river does not stem the flow, my Queen.**_

"Persephone?"

Hermione jolted upright and turned to face Myrtle, a hand hovering over her rapidly pounding heart.

The girl surveyed the state of the room and the other witch before her and gasped. "Merlin! Persephone are you alright?"

Myrtle hurried carefully past all the shards of glass and debris to come to the aid of her schoolmate, smoothing her hands over Hermione's arms in comfort.

Hermioine stared hard at the girl's hands on her person and a slow, predatory smile spread across her features.

"Yes. I'm just fine, Myrtle. Thank you."

**. . . . .**

_Tom found himself against the wall once more._

_Persephone's delicate hand was at his throat, her wand gripped in a tauntingly casual hold at her side while she merely commanded a crushing force to pin him in place with his feet dangling above the ground. _

_She came to her toes, pressing her cheek to his and he could feel her body so tensed she trembled as she whispered hotly in his ear. Her words were coated and dripping with the power he so desperately craved. "I am no one's property, Tom Riddle. You would do well to take that to heart," she said, the tip of her wand finding a hollow between his ribs, "before I carve it from your chest." _

_The voice slithering across his skin seemed that of an entirely different person._

"_I have given you The Chamber, but beware Salazar's legacy within. Now it is incumbent upon you to find a way to master the creature that dwells below." She leveled her gaze on him for many long moments before she pulled away.__** "I**__ am done giving you answers tonight. Do not speak to me again until you have solved this riddle for yourself." _

_Her expression was tight, fatigued, and her pupils blown so wide that all traces of the warm chocolate shades normally lingering there had been driven out. Tom found himself drawn into that endless inky pit and the odd glow somehow emanating from deep in the darkest of its recesses. He remembered the press of her magic only when he tried to move his jaw to retort. She understood what he was trying to do and those eyes darted to his lips and back again; her tongue came out to whet her own._

_Tom watched her dark stare glaze over for a very brief moment and her head twitched so slightly to the side, lids fluttering before she jumped back, jerking her hand away from his skin as if scalded. The force jailing him dropped away at once, leaving him to stumble with his footing and his chest suddenly heaving with its restored ability to take in full gulps of air._

_Persephone looked spooked, opened her mouth as if she were going to add something else, but instead turned to flee the Room._

_Tom looked after her, dumbfounded, while bracing himself heavily against the wall with one hand._

_One moment she'd been keening in pleasure, the next she'd snarled threats into his ear like THEY were precious sweet nothings, and finally she'd gazed upon him with what he so clearly recognized as fear. _

_Tom grimaced deeply and looked around what was left of the posh sitting area the Room had provided for their meeting. His sweeping gaze fell upon the battered remnants of her school bag and the wheels in his head turned._

_He would find a way master the creature alright – that was certainly now the plan – though the latter portion of her request he was afraid he would be unable to comply with._

_The lady had left her things._

_What sort of man would he be to be so negligent as to not return them to her?_

_And he really never did take 'orders' very well anyway._

**. . . . .**

Hermione had finally made it to the bottom of the stairwell with more than a little assistance from Myrtle. The girl had assisted with cleaning up the mess her surge of magic had caused and stayed with her long enough to get her sorted out. Without Myrtle, she would have probably still been a shuddering mass of sweat and confusion.

Shakily, she took her last step off the spiral staircase and the sight that greeted her was most unwelcome.

"Persephone," Tom said mildly, a peculiar look on his face, "I was beginning to worry."

Hermione urged the other girl on ahead of her, ignoring her slight protest and waited until she was alone with Tom to address him. The sneer she gave him was positively wretched. "Do you choose to be particularly recalcitrant or are you truly deaf? I understand that you are brilliant, but I will hardly stand to believe that you've solved your little…problem between the five hours I saw you last and now."

He felt compelled. He wanted to touch her, to stoke the fire that he now _**knew**_ was there. Tom felt his fingers twitch with the urge, but he curled them into fists at his sides and ignored her ire. Shrugging her bag off of his shoulder, he held it out to her by the strap. He saw her glare home in on it and the intensity behind it strengthened, sending chills through him.

"You left your bag." His words came out thicker than the last and it caused her a moment's pause.

Hesitantly, she took it from him and did well not to flinch when their hands brushed. "Did you look inside?" she asked but knew the answer. Tom gave her a smile that reminded her of the more pleasant pieces of their evening prior.

"I would never presume to steal a lady's secrets so boldly."

Hermione scoffed. "So I'm a lady now, am I? The last I had heard, I was something of an insufferable bitch. It seems as though times are changing quickly."

"Nothing's changed," Tom said smoothly and was rewarded with a skeptical stare. He shrugged. "Nothing _has._ Let us just say, I am more enlightened this morning than I was on mornings past."

"If you are not growing, you're dying," she said in way of a tense sort of truce.

Tom smirked and moved in close, hand reaching up to hover over her curls. He noted the way she tensed at his sudden proximity – an entirely too strange contrast to the way she'd writhed against him the night before – and he pulled away before he even brushed a single hair. He let his eyes run over the curves and angles of her face, lingering on the way she'd hollowed her cheeks and was likely gnawing on the inside of one of them with the way the muscles in her neck tightened.

He could practically smell the scent of her power roiling off her skin now and wanted so badly to taste it again. Tom leaned forward, barely able to stop himself where he did and murmured, "And we both know I've clearly no intention of the latter coming to pass."

Hermione swallowed thickly and drew in a deep breath.

The memory of her taste plagued him and Tom could sense it again on the back of his tongue. He inhaled as well, suppressing the pleasurable shudder caused by the tang of that crisp, electric part of her that rounded out her enticing aroma; he could finally put a name to it now. "I was hoping," he began, "last night would not interrupt our routine…"

Hermione shut her eyes, very much wanting to explore the way he was now opening himself to _her_.

'_I've waited so long for this…'_

She jerked back suddenly with a gasp and moved several steps from his grasp. Her gaze hardened as she shoved that set of memories back into the tattered recesses of her mind and she glared at the arm he'd offered towards her, saying nothing as she moved past him to head to breakfast.

**. . . . .**

The silence at the table was unnerving that morning.

Tarquin Nott was chewing his eggs quietly-more quietly and more politely than usual-as he watched his peers and silently observed the strange tension that was strung between them all.

Tom and Persephone had arrived late and with them came a dark mood that seemed to float and permeate whatever neutral atmosphere had existed between them all before. Tom had begun cutting his ham steak into cubes as he always did and Persephone sat, albeit stiffly, at his side, dishing eggs onto her plate as _she_ always did. Nott watched her snatch up a few pieces of buttered toast and her eyes did their customary scan of the table, searching for her most prized sugary topping. He watched his Lord pluck up the orange marmalade from a spot to his right where Abraxas had been hoarding it and passed it across his front to the witch on his left.

Persephone's hand started for the too sweet concoction but stopped abruptly, fingers twitching and curling into a fist instead as she pulled her hand back. Her lips pressed in a thin line, not even bothering for a polite smile to cover it and she dismissed the proffered jar in Tom's grip with a cold snub. "No, thank you."

Tom raised a brow at the show of defiance and, just as coldly asked, "Is there a problem?"

"There's butter in the marmalade. While I do enjoy both, I rather despise someone's secondhand leavings. Perhaps your _'_friends' should learn the proper order for things." Her eyes flitted down from Tom's face to the jar and back in a fraction of a second.

"Sorry, Persephone," Abraxas spoke up with the same mild smile and smooth tone he always saved for her, hoping to lighten her mood some. "That must have been my fault. I must've not cleaned the knife properly between the two."

"You should concentrate on your table manners instead of your patronizing words, Malfoy," she spat, "Your charms will get you less places than you think if you cannot even avoid conducting yourself like a savage at the breakfast table."

Her words lashed out at Abraxas like the crack of a whip. The stern, harsh tone to her voice causing him to flinch and cast his eyes to the table at the reprimand. The look on his face was that of a wounded child and he muttered his apologies to the witch again, but she'd already brushed him aside and forgotten him, more concentrated on the severe re-buttering of the bread before her.

Tarquin watched as Tom continued to stare at her – a bit rudely, really – and she merely ignored him. His Lord looked as though he were about to speak, but settled back into his meal once more. Nott resumed chewing and swallowing as silently as he could, avoiding any and all notice from the pair across from him. He couldn't help but understand that something was most definitely amiss.

**. . . . .**

The strangely tense atmosphere that had loomed during breakfast lingered throughout the course of their classes. Professor Slughorn had assigned them to another group project in class that morning, and Tom's followers were less than pleased about it. They all remained together, of course; it was simply what was expected. Whatever it was that was going on between their Lord and his witch was _not_ to affect their routine – they understood that much. It was because of this understanding that they were all huddled around a large table and paired off around it. Rosier was still in Hospital recovering, so Nott and Mulciber had taken a cauldron, Malfoy and Lestrange the next, and Persephone and Tom the last.

Persephone had left the table to get the ingredients for her and Tom's Draught of Living Death - she was the last out as the others in their group had already gone. Mulciber watched her cross the room to the supply closet with that same taut line to her back and agitated bounce to her walk that she'd arrived at the table in the Great Hall with. He frowned and looked back to the sopophorous bean he was trying to cut that kept rolling and bouncing around on his cutting board whenever he brought his blade down.

Mulciber poised his knife for another attempt at slicing and muttered to his partner, _"Someone must be having their womanlies…"_

A new knife, _Tom's knife,_ came into view, the point of it driving down into the ornery bouncing bean hard and with enough force to pin the little thing to the cutting board beneath it. The boys at the table gasped in shock and their eyes shot up to the source and just as quickly shot back down to inspect their shoes at the heated look in Tom's stare.

Tom offered a pleasant smile to them all, his voice low, but clear and full of dark promises. "This is a complex potion, gentlemen, one you will likely fail to concoct as even a passable version of the brew. I feel it is important to set these expectations before you realistically so you are not disappointed by your final results." He glanced over his shoulder, seeing Persephone rummaging through a shelf for the final bits of ingredients and turned back to his followers. "I should also remind you of the fact that Miss Callaghan and I, contrarily, continue to be at the top of the class and shall also continue to brew _more_ than passable, _perfect_ potions. Together. Such a talented witch should not be subjected to such crass remarks at every turn of her back."

"Yes, Tom." The murmurs of acknowledgement and apology circled the table.

Tom wriggled his blade free of the cutting board, the bean skewered on it and dripping the valuable juice needed for the potion. His tone was idle once more, yet his dark eyes were focused hard on the large man nearest to his and Persephone's brewing station. "I would also remind you, _gentlemen_, that too much of _this_ perfect brew **will **kill you."

The added final words from his master made Mulciber's skin break into a cold sweat. He didn't dare look up from his shoes yet, as he hadn't been given any indication that he was allowed to. He couldn't help, however, how his eyes bugged and his hands became clammy as he recognized as clear a threat as Tom Riddle ever made in public.

**. . . . .**

Another awkward day of being the model student with a crazed woman from the future dodging him at every turn passed. Tom found he had to forcibly remove himself from her and anything that had come to resemble a routine involving her in order to stop the unnerving compulsion to _see_ her, to _talk_ to her, to pick her bloody brain about her future, about his future, about _everything_ lest he send her crawling to the farthest possible corner of the castle to avoid him even more than she'd decided to do now.

In his effort to extract himself from the witch, he put his mind instead to just the task at hand. This plan, this mission, to open The Chamber had existed well before her arrival. He now had a location, a rough one anyway, and all he needed to do – according to the witch that would not be named – was find a way to wrangle whatever it was that lay within.

It was this that had him researching…again.

Tom flipped through the pages of another epically thick tome and, after again finding positively nothing, he shut the cover with a little more force than necessary. Had it not been for the silencing charms on his corner of the restricted section, Pince would have been pressing down on him in a minute.

…_master the creature that dwells below…_

He rubbed at his face in agitation and released a great sigh. There were some times in his life where he mused about what it would be like to be a regular wizard and not be destined for so much greatness to the point where he could enjoy a warm, sunny Saturday gallivanting about like a plebeian and snogging witches to his heart's content.

With his face buried in his hands, those rebellious thoughts lead to the inevitable image of Persephone Callaghan being the witch in his daydream.

She had tasted so much better than he'd fantasized about and, for a woman that veritably vibrated with dark magic once she'd dropped all of her walls, she was so much softer than he'd anticipated.

His vision of owning her still lingered in the forefront of his mind. While he was disappointed in himself for allowing his attention to wander, that disappointment was soon overruled by the vivid thoughts and memories of her breath on his lips and the sweet sounds she made in the back of her throat when he'd ground his hips over hers. It was as if he could still hear her whimpers, fresh and new and close by.

It wasn't until they grew more prominent and closer together did Tom realize that those muffled whimpers weren't in his head.

Tom pulled his face from his hands and looked around with a grimace. Very few people were allowed in this far back corner of the library and fewer still knew of the camouflaged privacy nooks – after all, when one researched the dark arts it was best they were left in peace. He only had to nose around the area for a moment before he found the source.

At the sight of the bewitching woman, curled around her book of fairie tales with a death grip on the text, murmuring frantic things beneath her breath and head lolling back and forth as if in a nightmare, Tom's vivid fantasies from before were replaced with her hot and cold attitude from the other evening.

She had been so inviting one moment and then frigid and crazed the next, as though she were warring with something inside of her. If her magic had not gotten in the way and if he were a weaker man, he might have thought to press her into making good on all of those signals she had been giving him to that point.

If he were a weaker man, he would not have parted so amicably with her the other morning; however, the raping and pillaging of women and things simply was not a part of his agenda.

It simply wasn't what powerful men _did. _

A weak man must try to take what he has not earned.

A strong man, a powerful man, had people and things thrown at his feet because it was simply deemed what _should _be.

Tom would have such a powerful witch as Persephone not by the force of his hand, but because she would come to understand that it was where she belonged. He simply had to show her, to make her understand this as the case. She was a strange little witch, but she _belonged_ at his side. She simply didn't realize this yet.

A weak man would force, a strong man would make her _see._

And Tom Riddle fancied himself the strongest of men.

He smirked to himself, eying her slumbering form and stepped stealthily into the reading nook. He loathed the thought of touching her unannounced as she slept, but she did it so fitfully he was certain he'd not be interrupting anything pleasant.

With a light hand to her shoulder, Tom nudged her. "Persephone," he whispered. "Persephone, wake up."

It took an additional nudge or two, but when she jolted awake he found her wand flashing out harshly with the tip of it digging into his cheek just below his eye. He stiffened, not having expected nearly that violent of a reaction from the girl and hissed her name again. "_Persephone!_" And he watched the strangest series of emotions flood through those eyes in mere seconds.

It was shock, surprise, _unadulterated terror_, and then that eerie light like dying embers whirled through her irises before dissolving back into the shifting chocolate and garnet stare he was much more accustomed to seeing.

Persephone clutched her book to her chest defensively, as though it were some sort of lifeline, and lessened the press of her wand. "You startled me," she growled at him.

Tom quirked a brow and placed a gentle hand on hers, counting it a victory when she didn't jerk away again as she had the past several times he'd attempted physical contact. He tilted his head and gave her what could pass for a warm smile. "I gathered that by the wand digging into my flesh." She narrowed her eyes but removed it completely then. Tom allowed himself a moment longer to study the way she was curled in on herself looking wild and worn, the arm holding her book was trembling so slightly, and her stare flitted around the nook as if she was gathering her senses. He frowned but resisted reaching for her again. "Miss Callaghan, are you feeling alright?"

His address of her pulled a chuckle from her throat and she unfurled herself from the cushion she'd claimed for her nap. "It has been a long set of nights, Tom," she murmured with a soft groan.

Tom's grimace deepened as she made to stand and nearly toppled with the effort. He caught her arm but she shrugged him away just as quickly, wobbling again but managing to get her feet beneath her. "Do you require an escort to your room?"

The witch scoffed and shook her head, bracing a hand on the wall of the nook as she moved to exit and return to the main study area that he'd been working in before finding her. She gazed over all the tomes he'd been through in his research with open appreciation and sighed. "I'm fine."

"You don't appear—"

"_I said I'm fine!"_ she snapped and it had a crack of power to it, wild and vicious as she'd been at the end of their duel.

Tom might have groaned a bit at the feel of it roiling over him but he shook his head and cleared his throat. He willed the pervasive images that plagued him since their initial meeting in the library out of his head and continued in a dull tenor. "Very well, Miss Callaghan. I would suggest you return to your dorm and get some rest to clear up-" He waved at her. "-whatever all that is and leave me to work on the…assignment that we spoke about before. …unless you would like to join me, of course." Tom watched Persephone wobble to the desk and run her hands over the tomes he'd stacked; it seemed an idle motion but her eyes were scanning all the spines carefully.

She trailed her fingers over the last embossed and gilded titles with a sigh. Leaning heavily on the desk, she lifted her wand and summoned over a new text, _Most Macabre Monstrosities_, and set it at his chair. Persephone peered over her shoulder tiredly, teetering even as she braced herself against the tabletop. "Try this one, _my Lord_. Take a moment and see if you can't find your spirit animal within."

He narrowed his eyes, half parts intrigued and half parts annoyed at the additional – albeit terribly weak - riddle. "If you have come to help me, would it not make more sense to simply _tell me_ what it is I must do?"

Persephone chuckled, gave him a shrug, and shuffled on. "And where would the fun in _that_ be?"

Tom followed her lightly hunched figure out of the restricted section with his hard glare.

Brilliant? Yes.

Clever? Yes.

Still infuriating? Still yes.

**. . . . .**

Hermione did not cross paths with Tom again for another day where it was by the lake that her peaceful research was disturbed. She'd felt him, of course, well before he reached her this time. If she were to guess, the way he 'announced' himself with his signature pulse of magic was completely intentional.

"Good afternoon, Tom," she tried her best to put as much sass into it as she could, but her exhaustion was evident in every aspect of her being at that point. The treacherous thought that she wasn't going to make it the necessary two years had started to creep into her mind a little more each day. The growing anxiety of being unable to summon her Elder self to assist her if that were the case was becoming stifling.

"Miss Callaghan," Tom replied in greeting and sat heavily at her side.

Hermione quirked a brow and shifted until she was on her side so she could see him more clearly. He looked as casual as she'd ever seen him, sitting on his robes, arms behind him, bracing his weight in a casual lean, with his legs stretched out next to her, one bent at the knee. "You look extraordinarily _ordinary_ today."

Tom scoffed and moved to reach into his robe. The movement made her tense and her hand twitch for her wand, fingers hovering over the handle of it already by the time he realized he'd set her on the defensive. He removed his hand immediately, holding both palms up and towards her in a way of placation until her shoulders relaxed some. "I was going to share my findings," he explained. At her wary look he sighed. "On taming the basilisk."

The witch's tensed look dissipated further and she let her hand rest on the grass next to her wand instead of going for it directly again. "Ah. Brilliant. You've figured both things out then?"

_That_ question ruffled his feathers and he made an indignant noise in the back of his throat. "As though there were any question I would?" He added in an acerbic drawl. "No thanks to you, of course."

She snorted indelicately and rolled onto her back, stretching out before him with the long line of her legs and arms stretching in either direction above and below her. Tom let his eyes run over her and he felt that persistent thrum of desire run through him at the sight of her modest curves. Those legs of hers went on for ages beyond the hem of her skirt pleats and the way she arched her back in her stretch only did the simple swell of her breasts favors.

Hermione watched the way his eyes darkened and nostrils flared while looking at her. She noted the way his fingers twitched where they'd gone back to pressing into the grass and the way the pulse in his neck had taken up a more rapid rhythm. Spread beneath a clear sky and a warm sun on the neatly kept fields of a place she'd loved quite dearly, it was easier for Hermione to chase away the darkness of Rodolphus Lestrange and the way he'd shattered her. She couldn't forget – would never – but maybe…

Hermione reached a hand out towards him, towards the fold of his robes that he'd been going for. "I think you've quite a bit to thank me for, Tom Riddle."

He raised a brow and leaned forward until her fingers were barely brushing his chest. It was the first willing physical contact she'd made with him since they parted the one night in The Room. The steady heat from her small fingertips seared him and he felt vividly every single part of his body they touched. He reached for her to guide her to the parchment he'd brought to her but when she twitched and started to pull away, he changed course to merely pull aside the outer edge of his robe.

"Blazer pocket," he said, voice having taken on a thicker tone already.

Hermione looked to his face and the way his dark eyes were studying her. Her fingers curled and flexed a few times, she licked her lips, and when he continued waiting, propped on an arm with the other opening his robe to her, she continued on to smooth her hand over his chest on the way to her destination. She dipped two fingers inside the pocket to retrieve a neatly folded square of parchment. When she withdrew it and he hadn't pounced on her in any way, her body released an extra tension she hadn't even known it had been carrying.

Tom released hold of his robes and continued leaning on the one arm, allowing his gaze to rake over her as she turned and turned and turned the paper between her fingers even as he felt her eyes focus on his face. "You've been avoiding me," he said at last.

"Yes." Her reply held no fanfare or fantastical revelations.

He dragged his stare back to hers and was almost immediately lost in the swirls of color. Tom found it a very trying thing indeed to resist touching her, as if the creature he gazed upon and sought to belong to him already did and he was resisting the very way of things. It was difficult to resist…but he did.

Hermione watched him shift his position, he was closer, still not touching, but significantly _closer._ The closer he brought himself to her, the more of the inherent, radiant heat of him and his magic rolled over her flesh and she wanted to burrow into it, never to come away again. He moved and he blocked the sun and all she could see then was the way it framed him, casting him—casting them both in darkness from it.

In her new shade, as the sunspots faded from her vision, she could more easily see the smooth angles of his face. High cheekbones, hollow cheeks, full enough lips to create a perfectly curved mouth full of snark and wit – Hermione was reaching to trace her fingers over those lips before she knew what she was doing.

Tom nearly shuddered with his continued restraint, but he kept his hands to himself. He pressed into her touch, pursed his lips to kiss the pads of her fingers and then so mischievously nipped them, drawing her out of her trance enough that she jumped a bit and drew her hand back to her breast. "Why?" he rumbled the question much closer to her face than he'd been moments ago.

Hermione's lips parted when she felt the puff of his breath on them. The shade he created, the darkness, it was drawing the memories in, pulling, tugging, ripping them to the surface. Her eyes were running across his features again, seeing Tom, Tom Riddle, not Rodolphus, not Lestrange, not _his_ eyes or _his _lips or— "I can't," she gasped suddenly, scrambling away from him as best she could when her back was pressed to dirt already.

Tom withdrew immediately, the moment – or whatever it was they'd had – shattered and the woman beneath him looked frantic, even with how hard she tried to hide it. Her eyes darted all over his person as though she were searching him for a threat, identifying him, inspecting him, determining his purpose. Something hot and possessive creeped along his spine and he felt his jaw tense and lips thin out. "Who should I seek?"

Her brow furrowed at the abrupt and strange question. "What?"

His hand did come up then, it was feather light and only to brush hair from her face, yet she flinched at even that. It turned that simmering heat of anger into a rolling boil. "The one that did this. Who must I punish?"

Hermione's eyes went wide in understanding and she was sure her lashes fluttered at least a dozen times in shock. Tom Riddle was staring at her with an angry set to his jaw that was somehow so very clearly not directed at her. She'd seen this same look to the man from her own time on the few unfortunate times she was dragged along to court and someone had upset him. Those times, this livid look was followed by public displays of torture or death - she suspected that's precisely what was running through this boy Lord's head as well.

He wanted her, to possess her, Hermione understood that. Despite this knowledge, seeing his anger ignited on her behalf…it did odd things to her.

Cautiously, she reached again, sliding her hand to cup his jaw. She felt the muscles there twitch but he exhaled the tension once her thumb began circling his cheek. "I cannot give you a name," she said and watched his eyes heat more.

Shaking her head, she held his stare, drew him in with a nod and intense look until she saw the understanding flicker through his expression and felt him pressing gently at her mind. Hermione drew forth her favorite memory of Rodolphus: sprawled in the Lestrange estate's foyer, arms bent in harsh angles, head twisted in a worse one, with his face unrecognizable, covered in blackened, cursed blood from the plethora of glass shards stabbing into all sides of it and a gaping hole left in his throat from her wicked blade.

Tom pulled out of her mind, gasping and his face flushed from the euphoric rush of her memory. He looked at her, hungrier for her than he'd been before. "You-"

"He has already been punished," she purred silkily.

He couldn't resist her pull any longer and lunged forward to claim her lips. The sight of the man, who had to have been decades older than her, violently bent and bloodied at this woman's hand—it was too much.

Hermione gasped and whimpered at the attack on her lips and it was so much like their first kiss – heated, passionate, _devouring._ Her lids fluttered and she slid her arms around his neck, forgetting their task for the moment and simply allowing him to ravage her mouth. Lingering thoughts of her old master tried to rip her from the tingling pleasure that Tom's kisses were shooting down to her center, but she clung to fact that the man above her _now_ was joining her to revel in the death of the very one that had attempted to ruin her.

She wasn't ready – not completely – but this was a place to start.

**. . . . .**

The solution that Tom had found was something called a 'Reflection Potion.' He'd found reference to it when researching basilisks and their gorgon cousins. Once consumed, the potion would allow the imbiber an hour of immunity to such creatures and their deadly stares. It seemed it was first developed in Greece and was speculatively traced back to the age of Perseus and his exploits. The humor of the connection was not lost on him and he couldn't help thinking of Persephone as he snuck out of his dorm nightly to The Room to tend to the brew until it was completed.

Persephone had assisted him with a portion of the brewing merely due to the swift rate in which it had required to move through steps. After their second meeting by the lake, the sharp tension had calmed between them during the day and classes, but a different sort continued to build. He'd been able to touch her again and he found it soothed an anxiousness that prickled along his spine whenever he was in her presence. A brush of the hand, a touch on the back, she'd even allowed him to tug her into some of the nooks in the halls between classes and kiss her once or twice.

She was letting him in, albeit slowly. He would have her yet, for it was rare these days that he would not get the things that he would want. He'd just needed to make her understand where she belonged…that was all.

The pair stood now in the girl's lavatory, vial of potion in hand and ready to tackle the great beast below.

Hermione watched Tom amusedly as he did his best to remain casual about his observance of the ever forbidden place.

"You've an hour with that," Hermione said with a nod to the vial he held. "It might be best to wait until you've reached the Chamber itself to take it."

He turned to her, tilting his head curiously. "Not joining me, Persephone?"

She closed the small gap between them and let her eyes run over his face. Hermione brought her fingers to his hairline and smoothed a tuft of wavy locks away from his forehead only to have them spring back into place.

Tom's free hand came up to still her wrist and he placed a kiss to her palm, watching her carefully. When she merely shifted her focus back to his face and smirked, he did it again.

"Oh, no. I've had enough of that creature for a lifetime."

He looked at her strangely but she'd extracted herself from his grip and turned to leave long before he had a chance to say anything.

Tom watched her retreat and when he was certain she had gone, he crossed to a long broken sink.

Staring at the tap, he took a breath and let smooth, hissed syllables roll from his tongue, bidding it to open and allow him passage.

There was a moment that passed where nothing but silence hung in the dimply lit lavatory. The stretch of it made the beats of his pulse that much louder in Tom's ears.

It wasn't until the porcelain twitched and the low, grinding noise sounded, signifying its movement, did Tom allow a wicked smirk to curl his lips.

* * *

**A/N:** Hello! Thanks everyone for your patience. I appreciate the support and the reviews! I know it's been about a month since the last update (I think) but I had a nice upbeat mood streak with Aca-demic Arrangements that I was riding out. As I mentioned in my initial A/N, this is a dark story. We haven't really gotten to the rough parts yet but there is much more to come. That being said, it takes a certain mindset for me to write this one and the long and short of it was that I was just too goofy and cheery to seriously commit to these evil scheming plots for a bit. I'm back into a place where I can focus a bit better on this one now, though, so the updates should pick up again on Persephone.

In the meantime, if people are bored and wondering what I'm doing, I suggest checking my Tumblr for updates (user name is in my profile page). It's mostly nonsense, but I usually have a play by play. Also! Feel free to send me questions there. I rather like the "Ask" feature of Tumblr and just generally like getting mail (and reviews...but mail is fun too).

Thanks again folks!


	16. Chapter 15 - Mudbloods (Book I)

**15 – Mudbloods**

May 1943

The Prefect baths were glorious, positively glorious. The only thing that could have made them any more enjoyable was the ability to have them all to oneself for the length of one's bathing experience.

All of the Prefects knew it but, due to the nature of the positions and the relative honesty that tended to run through the veins of those that occupied said positions, few of them plotted and planned any such afterhours gallivanting about to capitalize on it. There were, in fact, only a handful of Slytherins and a smattering of the other houses that ever showed up in the Prefect baths after curfew to indulge. Even that happened only as a sort of silent pact between them all, lest one ruin it for everyone. Truth be told, it was the most cross house cooperation the school had ever seen since its establishment.

It was Stefan's night in the bath, something he looked forward to all week, especially of late with exams fast approaching. Cram time was on the horizon and the talons of his housemates were soon to come out. Study groups were being formed within already existing cliques and the inner house animosity was rising at an alarming rate as everyone prepared themselves to outdo one another in a most flamboyant fashion. Stefan had had great aspirations for wrangling his way into a study group with Persephone Callaghan, seeing as how she was topping classes in most everything, tying only with Rufus Wormwood in Transfiguration. It was to his great dismay, however, that she'd distanced herself from her own house and had routinely been seen on the arm of the school's "genius boy," Tom Riddle.

As he lounged, legs stretched out before him, reclining with his head back and a cloth over his face, he combed his memory for when it had happened. He, if he were being honest with himself, thought he'd found an in with the girl until Riddle had actually begun to show any sort of interest in her. He and Persephone were both Muggle-born and after her episode in the common room, as well as another tantrum he'd heard rumours of in the girls' dorm, she had successfully alienated herself from the majority of their house. There was hardly a Ravenclaw, male _or_ female, that wanted anything to do with her, muttering about her random bouts of aggression and instability that usually manifested towards inanimate objects.

They would wonder about her-about her fits.

Always wondering but never telling anyone outside of their Nest.

Stefan was _sure_ he would be able to garner the girl's attentions-her affections would be a bonus as well, for she was certainly not _un_attractive-but he wanted so completely the access to that mind of hers that pulled answers and knowledge from seemingly endless depths and resources. He wanted it more than anything and so, by extension, he wanted her.

Stefan wanted her but to see her so thoroughly entangled with that snake…it was a study in frustration.

He'd tried still, of course. He'd tried to greet her and insinuate himself into her routine more so than the sly, smooth talking boy that he trusted about as far as he could throw. Unfortunately, for Stefan, it seemed that said sly boy was equally entangled and he dared to say _enamoured_ with her. They were so familiar with the other, nearly as if they'd known each other for ages.

It was all very strange to witness and also _very_ problematic.

Stefan sighed heavily and sat up, allowing the cloth to fall from his face and splash into the water in favor of inspecting his hands for their level of pruney-ness. With a frown, he eyed his wrinkled digits and rolled out the tight muscles in his shoulders; he would figure out Callaghan another night.

Going about his regular routine, he proceeded splashing about and scrubbing his skin with a newly soapy washcloth, even going so far as to take up humming merrily as he bathed. He did his best to keep his tone low, but there was never anyone really out and about there at such a late hour so his hums soon turned into a full lyrical ensemble as he sang a catchy tune he'd heard on his last visit home for the Easter holiday.

Deciding to freshen the water some, Stefan, in all his soapy glory, reached to open the faucets and let in more steamy hot water. In addition to the wash of heat, a noisy groan rattled in the distance. Clamping his mouth and the faucets shut once more, he looked around, wide eyed, expecting a teacher to waltz right on in at any moment. Frozen in anticipatory fear at being caught, Stefan waited several nervous moments until the coast seemed clear enough. Releasing a great sigh of relief, he shook his head and sloshed back to his things, perching on the rim of the bath and taking up his shampoo so he could finish up and get out before he truly _did_ get busted for his afterhours romp.

Stefan was in the midst of shampooing when the noise sounded again, _much _louder and this time also accompanied by a sudden tremor that startled him so badly he tripped back into the water, splashing wildly and getting soap in his eyes.

"_Shite!"_ he cursed, more at the strange ruckus than the stinging in his eyes. Stefan sloshed around, his heart thumping rapidly in his chest and attempted a frantic scooping of as much suds-free water as he could get to flush out the soap; he succeeded in only making it worse and cursed again. With a strangled grunt, he scrubbed at his eyes with one hand while feeling around the edge of the basin with the other, in search of his wand.

Another groan sounded and he realized it was the combined creak and strain of wood beams and stone trying to support something very, _very_ large. The water was roiling angrily as whatever was responsible for it neared. The way the ground rattled beneath him reminded him of hitting a rough patch of air while flying across the Pitch with no end to it in sight; and it only got worse.

Stefan loosed a pathetic whimper at the realization that whatever was coming was coming _there_ – quite possibly for _**him.**_ With renewed panic, he fumbled around to find the edge and his belongings once more. Eyes squinched shut against the persistent burning pain, Stefan located his bag and dug through it, breaths puffing past his lips in frantic, terrified pants. His hand closed around the familiar wooden handle and he got only so far as extracting it from the satchel and pointing it in the direction of the rumbling when the deafening sound of a deep-bodied hiss filled his ears.

The wizard was awash with sudden, agonizing pain as the creature rammed into him with force enough he could feel several of his ribs simply snap like twigs and sent him flying back into the water. He cried out but his mouth was immediately filled with water that he did his best to expel back out with choking coughs though it came back tinted pink. Stefan floundered and wheezed, ignoring the splintered bones that must have pierced his lungs, knowing that if he didn't, whatever this was would surely kill him in a much more grizzly fashion. He'd sputtered and splashed to the far end of the bath but the noise was everywhere now.

The rumbling, the rattling, the hissing, it all circled him, reached him from every side of the room – it was toying with him.

Stefan struggled to get his feet beneath him, water leaking from between grit teeth along with the desperate noises bubbling from his chest.

The water around him rose to his neck and flooded out of the basin, the sound of the creature speeding through it behind him wrenched a scream from his throat.

Stefan had enough time to turn, point his wand once more and gurgle a single incantation before it struck and he fell back beneath the waves.

The wailing of the caterwauling charm he'd cast faded in his ears.

**. . . . .**

"_How is the boy, Madame?"_

"_Not well, Headmaster. Not well at all. We're doing everything we can to stabilize him here until we can get him transported to St. Mungo's. The entire __**bath**__ was red with his—"_

"_Have his parents already been contacted?"_

"_What? Yes! Yes, of course! Goodness—my sweet __**goodness**__, Armando! If he hadn't cast that charm, if he hadn't sounded an alarm, he would be—" She paused and glanced to the bed where the school's house elves were assisting her with treating Stefan and turned back to Headmaster Dippet, hissing the next, "He would be __**dead.**__ Floating and choking in his own blood. Those injuries—"_

"_Have you determined what caused them?"_

_The Mediwitch frowned, hesitating with her answer._

_Dippet's old, haggard face looked even more worn and weary in that moment, his eyes tight, lips pursed with dread at the answer. "Madame?"_

_The woman answered in a murmur and knowing he certainly hadn't heard her correctly, he asked again._

"_I'm sorry, Madame, what did you say?"_

_She cleared her throat and straightened. "It…it's impossible to tell what exactly but…his arm was punctured clean through and…on the verge of complete petrification from a particular venom by the time I got to him. I had to sever it to stop it from spreading…there's only one creature that I know of with that potent of a venom."_

_Dippet inhaled sharply through his teeth and straightened as well, unwilling to speak the culprit's name aloud again._

**. . . . .**

When he found her, she was nestled inside an old, secretive cubby he'd caught her snoozing in days before. She was reading, studying with a smokeless blue flame flickering and illuminating the space. The light highlighted the curves and valleys of her face, made her eyes look darker than he knew them to be, not counting the swirl of magic that always seemed to dance in them when he gazed upon them; Tom thought of her power, thought of her devious designs up till now, and he found himself smiling as he joined her.

"Good evening, Miss Callaghan," he said softly, placing his things on the floor across from her, removing his jacket and folding it neatly over them before he came to kneel nearby.

Hermione looked up from her reading, offered him the smallest of smiles, then turned her page before shifting her attention back to her book. "Good evening, Tom. You appear as the cat that got the canary," she teased knowingly, "Should I look forward to hearing a tale this eve?"

Slowly, _very_ slowly, Tom grasped her book and gave it a gentle tug. She looked up again, this time with a knowing smile to match her knowing look, and she let him remove the book from her grip. "I've no tale of my own to tell, my Lady, simply something I'd heard while walking the corridors on patrol."

"Oh?" she asked, leaning back into her cushions with feigned ignorance.

Hermione's eyes roved over Tom's face, also lit in blue, but much harsher than the sweet, sloping curves of her round one. His cheekbones and the hollows beneath them looked devilish, combined with the way his eyes and smile were full of vindictive satisfaction, Hermione could have mistaken him for the devil himself. He leaned nearer but his pace was controlled and careful as if she were a mare bound to startle at his proximity. She couldn't help a small chuckle. Hermione welcomed him only slightly closer with a hand gently pressed to his chest, one that swept over his shoulder, one that lingered at his neck, toying with the short hairs at his nape.

"Tell me, Tom, tell me what gossip has reached the ears of Hogwarts' golden boy?"

Tom couldn't stifle his grin, not after having poured as many hours as he had into his research and efforts, not after fighting the hard fought duel against this little waif of a thing who veritably thrummed with power every second of every day. He moved closer at her insistence, the tip of their noses touching, his grin widening when she even offered him an encouraging nuzzle.

"I have heard rumour of a creature on the loose, Miss Callaghan."

"Is that so?" she asked, shocked. "A _creature._ What sort?"

"A kind that has been attacking students…" Tom was close, his lips trailing in as chaste a fashion as he could manage in his excitement, pacing himself and watching her for any signs to stop.

"Merlin forbid," Hermione hummed when his light kisses reached her cheek, just before her ear. His breath tickled her skin and sent both heat and chills through her in a way that made her thighs clench, but also triggered the warnings that had kept her sane, making her shoulders tighten.

Tom's pathing lips stopped and he pulled away once more, his forehead pressed to hers, their noses touching. He inhaled a calming breath in an attempt to soothe his arousal though his next muttered words were husky and thick. "I am afraid to inform you, Miss Callaghan, that your Housemate was its first victim. Stefan has been removed to St. Mungo's as of this morning and his situation was most…_dire._"

Hermione enjoyed the amusement and satisfaction in his tone. She typically found such caveman-like proclamations of dominance foolish and unnecessary, though, to be fair, Hermione had not had much experience being on the receiving end of it in her life. With a mock-saddened sigh, Hermione tightened her arms around Tom's neck and said, "That _is_ concerning."

"Do not fret, my Lady…I will care for you…see to it that no such harm would befall yourself or any others you may hold dear."

"I thank you for that, Tom Riddle."

"A pleasure, Miss Callaghan. It is, of course, what any good man would do."

She nodded and smirked. Her plan to keep the Dark Lord as hers rolled through her head over and over but her body still flinched when his hands settled over parts of her. Her arms, her waist, her hips, her thighs, they were all subject to the dreadful recollections of her time with Rodolphus. Hermione had tried to drown them all out to move into her next phase, yet she'd still, frustratingly, been unable to lock them away as successfully as memories of her Mistress' torture.

As if reading her mind, though she hadn't felt his signature press of magic, Tom unwrapped her arms from his neck and guided them back to her sides. Rather than letting them fall and hang loosely, however, he slipped his hands into hers, fingers weaving through her own in as gentle a move as she'd ever felt from a man. Something shuddered not unpleasantly in her chest and Hermione moved her head to nuzzle him once more.

"I know of a rumour as well," she offered softly after a time.

Tom reopened his eyes, not remembering when they had fallen shut and took in the peaceful way his Persephone appeared in their secret room, lit by her blue fire. "And what rumour has my Lady come upon?" He watched her lips quirk automatically at the title he'd given her and continued to repeat.

"I hear that our poor, dear Stefan…"

"Mm?"

"…doesn't make it."

"'_Doesn't?'"_ He repeated the odd phrasing. "And when exactly did you hear this rumour, dear Persephone?"

"At the start of next year," she mumbled softly against his lips.

Tom's wicked smile returned with ferocious triumph.

She _would_ belong to him.

**. . . . .**

"_Madame?"_

"_Another, Headmaster. __**ANOTHER.**__ We have to do something, we have to alert the Ministry, we have to—"_

"_We have to maintain our heads, Madame."_

"_Wh-__**what?**__ Headmaster, we must do something NOW. We were lucky, this time was not as bad as the first but who's to—"_

"_We will maintain-our-heads, Madame. I will…begin investigations in the morning, however we must maintain the appearance of calm and control until we have more facts."_

"_FACTS, Armando? The FACTS are that the children are in danger—"_

"_Thank you for your time this evening, Madame. I trust you will tend to her and keep the details of her injuries out of idle chatter and respect the girl's privacy."_

"_B-but—"_

"_Have I misplaced my trust?"_

"…_no, Headmaster. No, of course not."_

"_Good evening, Madame."_

"_Good evening, Headmaster…"_

**. . . . .**

"Have you heard the news, Miss Callaghan?" Tom asked smugly, drawing her from her book – this evening it was her favored collection of children's stories again. This had been the book for the past few nights when he'd found her before their study sessions and its bindings were so tattered, he'd begun to speculate that she slept with the thing.

"What news might that be, Mister Riddle?" She responded with lightly amused interest.

"The halls aren't safe. All students, regardless of age and year, should be in bed by the new curfew to prevent any further..._accidents._"

"More children falling down the stairs?" Hermione said in mocked astonishment and worry. She was smirking internally at the cocky way he was encroaching on her space. What days ago was nerve-wracking to be in such close physical proximity to him, was becoming more and more of a welcome staple.

His energies were familiar. It sounded like something Luna would've said, but in a time where so much was foreign and strange, Tom - _Lord Voldemort's_ \- magical signature was familiar and she'd begun to find comfort in it. She found it nearly as steadying as the horcrux, the piece of her own soul she'd been carting around with her as of late while her Pure self struggled against her bonds.

"Should I be worried?"

Tom grinned at the coy facade and slid his knuckles lightly over her cheek to sneak beneath her fall of rich, if not wild, chestnut hair. His fingers curled around her nape lightly and she tensed for only a few seconds now - she was becoming much better at accepting his touches - prior to allowing herself to be tugged gently forward. His lips pressed carefully, cautiously, to her temple, then her cheek, then her jaw as he slowly worked a path to the corner of her mouth where he murmured, "I assured you that you could rest easy, my dear Lady Persephone. I can keep you safe."

Hermione sighed softly, leaning into his featherlight kisses. "Because such good men can accomplish such monumental tasks?" she asked with humour to the words.

"Because I command the creature," he corrected and pursed his lips so she received just the barest of kisses to the corner of her mouth. His witch made a light noise of protest when he pulled away to speak rather than kiss her again. In a pronounced stage whisper, he said, "But don't tell anyone. They might string me up."

Hermione laughed at how devious he looked and how utterly pleased with himself he was but, mostly, how eager he seemed to want to celebrate with her and _her_ alone.

It would make it difficult, she thought, doing what she needed to do next with him looking so smug and sinful.

His chipper attitude these past days had been infectious and, if not for the constant beating of voices within her own mind, she might have been able to enjoy it.

It would be difficult, she mused again, yet not impossible.

Tom was smiling at her again, so eager to gloat about his brilliance, and she failed to stifle another chuckle at his boyish excitement. Hermione shook her head and swept some of his hair from his forehead, her touch lingering on the handsome cut of his jaw. She felt the light, raspy growth of stubble against her fingers and shivered; for the first time since she'd freed herself, her shiver was not borne of fear.

She, so very carefully, leaned forward to return one of his earlier, innocent kisses to his lips – more a brush of skin than anything else – and then lingered, pressing her forehead to his. Hermione felt his head shift, his nose brushing hers in something he would claim was unintentional, and let his hands dance down her arms until he reached hers, clasping each one together palm to palm.

Hermione let the soothing quiet blanket them as something warm and welcome and…_comfortable_.

"I have something for you, Tom…" she said after a time. Hermione could practically feel his heart rate stutter and heighten, eager for what other tidbits of the future she might share. She was impressed when he managed a calm, _"you've no need to give gifts, my Lady."_

And she chuckled, then politely extracted herself from his grip.

"Aunt Ruthie sent us the care package I'd promised you some days ago."

"Ah," Tom said with a metered level of disappointment creeping into his voice. He watched her reach behind her and rummage through the bag that he'd learned had a rather impressive extension charm woven into it to extract the signature packaging from _Ruthie's Patisserie._ It wasn't until she'd begun to unwrap the delicate bow tucked around the box that his mouth started to water. "And what treats has your dear Aunt sent?"

Hermione lifted the lid and smirked at the contents. "Macaroons," she said.

Tom quirked a brow at her expression and the way it lingered as she looked at the pastries inside. He leaned over to peek at whatever else had caught her eye and snorted a laugh as he reached in to extract an intricately shaped jar of homemade orange marmalade.

She just shrugged and said, "It's _quite_ good."

**. . . . .**

It was late, _very_ late by the time Tom was returning to the dungeons. If he was lucky, he would be able to get a handful of hours of sleep, though sleep was a small sacrifice to make to continue flexing his control over the creature.

Sleep was also a small sacrifice to make to continue courting Persephone Callaghan.

He was making such magnificent progress with his strange time traveling witch. She'd still yet to reveal the full scope of her purpose in finding him and leading him into the throne of the leader that she'd apparently grown to know and loathe, but there was time. Tom had grown fond of the witch, of one to keep conversation with who could actually participate and contribute, but he knew there was more to her than what she'd given him so far.

He knew there was more to Persephone than the pieces he was coaxing to find peace and safety in his shadow.

He knew she would be a problem if left unrestrained.

He _knew_ it and was making a great deal of progress towards helping her reach that natural conclusion about where her true place lay in both of their rewritten futures – she was already bringing him _pastries,_ for Merlin's sake.

Tom was in the midst of feeling rather good about himself, thinking on his mission for the basilisk that evening, as well as the box of leftover sweets that Persephone had sent him along with from their late night _'studying' _when he came upon something that soured his mood greatly.

A large, looming figure was creeping about the dungeon halls as stealthily as something half giant could be. He was carrying something in his large cupped hands and muttering to himself a repeated reminder to _'keep quiet.'_ A deep grimace found its way to Tom's face and he called out in a low but stern voice.

"Hagrid," he said, "What are you doing down in the dungeons at this time of night? And what's that?" Tom asked suspiciously, deflecting any potential questions about his own quite rumpled state onto the mischief the half-giant was entertaining. "What's that you've got there?"

Hagrid took in a large gulp of air and wheeled around on his heels. His eyes were wide and immediately panicked.

He was unmistakably up to no good.

"O-o-h—this? It ain't nothin', Tom, ain't nothin' at all—"

His brow furrowed and the Slytherin inched closer to investigate Hagrid's poorly concealed secret. "These are…petrified _rats_? So _this_ is where Slughorn's rats have been getting to!" Tom gave the boy a very serious look. "Tromping around the dungeons after curfew…showing up with missing school property—" At Hagrid's ever growing nervous expression and his inching towards a particular cupboard door near some of the floor's supply closets, Tom narrowed his eyes and barely resisted drawing his wand. "_Hiding_ something. Hagrid, step away from there."

"Oh, no! No, Tom, please!" Hagrid began begging immediately in a loud whisper, solidifying any and all suspicions Tom may have had.

"I don't think I will, as a matter of fact. As a school Prefect, it _is_ my duty to report any such suspicious behaviour. Step away from there and tell me what you've done." His authoritative tone was the very same he used with his own followers and it had more than the desired effect.

Even though Hagrid towered over the other boy, he shook, his hands trembling so much that some of the rats' tails drooped out from between his clasped hands and flailed about in his panicked gesturing. "Please Tom! He's just a younglin'! He hadn't done nothin' yet! He's just a bitty bitty babe!"

Tom arched a brow. "_He?"_

Hagrid flushed, realizing that he'd said far more than "too much" already and started to sweat. He took one of those big sweaty meat paws from the unmoving rodents in his hands and swiped it across his brow; Tom sneered. "I-I-I d-d-din't…I mean…he—"

Tom's good mood at having met with his witch immediately before _trying_ to retire to his room was quickly dwindling, as was his patience. "What is _he_, Hagrid?" he asked, trying to insinuate more of that winning "perfect role model student" into his tone lest he just skin the man where he stood for dousing his afterglow.

The half-giant chewed on his lip, eyes very obviously darting to the cupboard and back to Tom. "Aragog." At Tom's quirked eyebrow, he said, "His name is Aragog. He's a acromantula. A-a-a spi—"

"I _know_ what an acromantula is," Tom snapped testily. His jaw tightened and he looked at the cupboard with a hard glare, a breath huffing out through his nostrils as he thought about the repercussions of having a budding to-be-monstrous spider creature being raised and fed and _grown _by the daft boy before him. That could be problematic—

"_Please_ Tom," Hagrid pleaded again. "Ah'll do anythin'. Just don't tell nobody!"

Tom looked at him again.

_Problematic…or extremely fortuitous._

A plan had already been hatching but the boy's words cemented it. Tom looked back to Hagrid and loosed an exasperated sigh, as if his compromise was _so_ very draining. "Hagrid," he began reasonably and repeated, "you _know_ that I am a Prefect. And, again, it is my _responsibility_ to report suspicious behaviour—"

Hagrid's face fell and he looked worriedly at the cupboard.

"—however—"

He perked up and looked back at Tom, wide eyed and hopeful.

"You shall find I am not an unkind man. I would no sooner turn a baby out into the world alone and uncared for – regardless of the species – than I would kill a man in cold blood." At this statement, Tom smiled - it was a shark's smile - but Hagrid looked enormously relieved at his words. "I won't say anything—"

"Oh, Tom! Thank ye', thank ye'—"

"_But,_" he stopped the half-giant's thankful blubbering with a raised hand and said, "If it becomes a problem…I will have no choice but to report it."

"Oh, yes, I understand! Thank ye' Tom! Ya won't be disappointed, I promise!"

Tom smiled. "No. I'm sure I won't."

**. . . . .**

Albus Dumbledore sat amongst the others at the long faculty table, stroking his beard, and being as casual as possible about watching the Slytherin table. His main focus was the handful of children at the far end, near the doors to the Hall. He'd watched them idly for some time now, inseparable that lot, attached practically at the hip or, more accurately, each was a limb of a single functioning unit; and Tom Marvolo Riddle was the head.

Tom and his friends wasn't what had caught his eye that morning, however-they weren't what had caught his eye the past several mornings. What attracted Dumbledore's attention was the new Ravenclaw girl that had come from America on the waves of tragedy from the war. Persephone Callaghan was her name and she was academically brilliant – unsurprising for one so sorted. The only courses she seemed to falter in at all were his own specialty and, or so he heard, arithmancy. Miss Persephone's gifted praise was sung by all the other staff and, for the most part, she was a rather unremarkable girl otherwise.

It was because of this, that Dumbledore's attention was so focused on the girl and where she sat next to Tom Riddle. He watched. He observed. He took in how the pair acted, how Tom actually appeared to…_like_ her. It was the first instance he'd ever seen of such a thing.

"Quite the pair, aren't they Albus?"

Dumbledore looked up from stroking his beard and over to his colleague. "A pair indeed, Horace. That is the student you have raved quite loudly about is it not?"

"Persephone Callaghan!" Slughorn puffed up proudly, leaning back in his seat and hooking his hands around the edges of his lapels with an eager nod. "_Brilliant_ girl. _She_ will be getting an invitation next year to a _very_ exclusive club."

Albus rose a thick, furred eyebrow at Horace's pleased as punch posturing and looked back to the couple. "They appear to be a bit of an item, don't they?"

Professor Slughorn appeared surprised at the observation and looked again. He watched them interact, watched his most prized student pass the girl a jar of marmalade and dish a serving of eggs onto her plate, lingering to whisper something in her ear that made her turn her head and hide a diminutive laugh behind the back of her hand. Horace brightened, his grin stretching his mouth wide. "It appears so! Look at that, Albus!" He puffed up some more and smoothed his hands over his robes. "I don't want to take complete credit for that, but I _did_ introduce them…oh, wonderful, _wonderful._ Their progeny will be undoubtedly impressive, if I do say so myself."

Dumbledore grimaced behind the hand still stroking his beard. "Does it not seem odd to you that—"

"Oh _Albus,_" Professor Kettleburn said, "Our young Master Riddle has found interest in another human being at last. Why must you try and stifle such a thing? Aren't you always the one toting on about love and fate and _destiny_? Leave the poor little things alone."

This seemed to sufficiently halt the older man's inquiries for the time being and he shifted, leaning on his opposite elbow, still stroking his beard, still watching the couple with interest.

**. . . . .**

His hands were roaming as they'd come to do.

He tested the boundaries every day, but carefully, methodically, and only as they'd agreed.

His fingers were sliding down past her waist, over her hips, under her skirt, though that's as far as they'd established boundaries for thus far.

He was excited. She could feel him. She had to constantly tell herself that it was okay.

It was fine.

It was part of the plan.

And also, that she commanded _him_.

"Stop," she said when his fingers had crept too far up on their own.

He didn't apologize. He never did. But he always stopped. ALWAYS. And always precisely when she would say to. His hands would come away from her, as agreed, and she would place them where she desired. Then, and only then, after she'd set him straight, they could continue.

She enjoyed playing games, Persephone did. At times, she would have him freeze his hands in their tracks, only to replace them to hover over more scandalous areas, never to touch. Never to resume their trek and only to taunt him with this power.

It was just as well, Tom thought. She was using him like this, to restore her shattered strength yet flex it at the same time.

It was just as well, he thought again, for it would only bind her to him that much more tightly. She would be stronger for it after...and then she would be his.

And Hermione would smile inwardly, knowing the sorts of conspiratorial thoughts that floated through his mind.

**. . . . .**

Hermione blinked up into the dark room, listening to the other girls' steady breathing. She waited several moments, making sure all of them were soundly asleep before moving. Reaching beneath her pillow, she grasped her crooked wand and cast a spell to silence the air around her then proceeded to gather the things she'd packed earlier in the evening. Hermione made her way from the girl's dorm swiftly and silently as little more than a breeze passing through the corridors. She had gotten all the way to the door to the tower before anyone had noticed, or at least before anyone had caused her pause.

"_Persephone?"_

Hermione turned on her heel, wand out reflexively, lowering it only when she realized who it was. "Myrtle," she whispered back. "What are you doing out of bed?"

"What am _I—_what are _you_ doing?" The girl asked, looked around, fiddled with the hem of her pyjama top then shuffled hurriedly towards Persephone. "Where are you going? You _know _what they're saying! It's dangerous out after dark!"

She scoffed. "I can take care of myself, Myrtle. I'm just going to the library. Nowhere near any of where things have been happening."

"B-but!"

Hermione gave the other girl a small, patient smile and reached out to brush one of her pigtails off of a shoulder. "Hey, trust me okay? I'll be alright."

Myrtle chewed on the bottom of her lip, glancing all around the common room until Persephone pulled her attention again.

"Hey," she said even more softly, "You're my only friend up here…" Myrtle nearly gasped at the statement. "…can I trust you to keep this a secret?"

The awkward girl was caught between beaming about having someone admit they were friends and worrying about her well-being.

Ultimately, after much chewing and gnawing on her lip, Myrtle nodded. "You can trust me, friend."

Hermione smiled.

"_Brilliant."_

**. . . . .**

Another day, another task for his pet. The beast had come to call eagerly these nights now. Not all evenings did he order an attack, several he only ordered scouring of the school's passageways and long lost tunnels to see what places it could gain access to with ease. Tom metered out the incidents, needing them to come at a frequency that was concerning, yet not dangerous enough to implicate the need for more serious investigation around the school.

_Mudbloods,_ he'd told the thing. _Hunt the Mudbloods and purge them from these halls._

And so the creature did, and did so merrily, happy to taste the tang of human blood after many long years of enchanted hibernation.

He'd released it again this evening, tasked it to search for passages and entries and so Tom was once again free to _"study"_ with his witch. She had brought him pastries not long ago and, as a gentleman would do, he had sent for a gift to be delivered to the school for which to give her as a thank you. His first thought was to claim the annotated copy of Magick Moste Evile from the Malfoys' personal library and provide it to her, but it would not make it to his hands via owl post – not with Dippet nosing through everyone's things. So he'd had one of his minions request one of Honeydukes' fine chocolate samplers instead. That had come that morning, remarkably untouched by the Headmaster's sweet tooth, and Tom had coveted it as well as he could, hiding the parcel from Persephone's curious pokes and prods to deliver to her privately that evening.

He walked with a confident and pleased bounce to his step, the artfully wrapped box of candies tucked neatly under one arm, to meet her at their usual cubby. Tom hadn't even set a foot past the threshold before he noted the oddness of the space.

Normally lit with her bluebell flames, flickering and heating the small room with fire that appeared as if it should freeze rather than burn, the cubby was cast in pitch black darkness. Not a single fire nor light from a wand tip lit the area and it felt cool, the air stale and unused.

Persephone wasn't there.

With a whisper of a spell, Tom lit his wand and the cubby, reaching his arm around to illuminate the tiny cove. What greeted him was an even stranger sight: Persephone's belongings, at least some of them, were there.

He furrowed his brow and knelt to look at what had remained.

Her bag was not there, yet several of her books for the upcoming exams were stacked and spread, still. He surveyed the scene longer and it appeared as if she'd been there, waiting, reading, and perhaps left with the intention of returning. A frown had found its way to his face and it was then that it deepened, the strangest inkling of…curiosity, was it? Certainly not _concern_…bubbled in his stomach.

He would wait some then.

He would wait for her to return, for, even in this secret space, she would not have left her things so scattered if she were not to return…

Tom waited for hours but Persephone never did come back.

It wasn't until his eyelids were falling shut longer than he could keep them peeled apart that he gave up and returned to the dungeons.

He would see his witch in the morning and find out what happened then.

Tom slept poorly that night.

**. . . . .**

With a groggy face and an unpleasant disposition that next morning, Tom leaned against his favored wall at the base of Ravenclaw tower. He pressed his side to the stones, folded his arms, and stared into space in the direction of the spiral staircase where his Persephone would descend at any moment.

Only she did not.

She did not descend for a long, long time.

Tom checked his pocket watch and found himself nearly late for class already. With a scowl towards the stairwell and one last hesitant gaze in the direction of the tower's dorms, Tom turned and made his way back to the dungeons for potions.

He'd been so intent on thinking of what he was to discuss with Persephone once she emerged that he'd failed to notice it wasn't just her that had not descended the tower, not a single Ravenclaw had come out of the Nest that morning.

Tom reached the classroom, half expecting to see his witch there, waiting for him with an unimpressed look in her eyes but that small smirk that always adorned her lips for him and a dull _"where have you been?"_

She was not there either, doing any of these things.

He entered the room and set a course to his normal table with his followers having already seated and arranged themselves accordingly. Tom got as far as setting down his bag before Professor Slughorn appeared looking frazzled and obvious worry plastered all over his old chubby face. Slughorn's eyes zeroed in on him and the man made a beeline for his seat.

"Professor?" Tom started politely. "Is something the matter this morning? You appear unwell—"

"Tom, Tom, my boy, yes. I'm afraid there is something quite the matter, I…I'm afraid I need you to come with me."

Tom did well not to flinch at the concerning words. He couldn't have been found out. While the creature's attacks were not necessarily subtle, there was nothing tying it back to him. They had no proof, they had no—

The Professor leaned in when Tom didn't move right away, dropping his voice to a hissed whisper, "I'm afraid it's Miss Callaghan, Tom. She's been attacked. Come, I'm going to take you to her."

"Persephone?" Her name left his lips in a shock before he could compose himself. That was impossible. He had complete control of the creature! It should not have gone anywhere near his witch. He'd told it to search, not to attack, not to…not to _kill._ Tom's attention refocused and snapped back to his Head of House. "Professor what—"

"Not _here_, Tom, not here. Come, I will fill you in on the way."

Nodding, Tom followed his Professor, pausing only when Slughorn instructed the class to begin preparation for brewing and left one of the Prefects to watch over them all. He kept in step with the man, listening to him stutter and stammer, trying to prepare him for what he was about to see. Tom had a strong stomach for the violence he knew his creature could bring, though he found that something unpleasant was twisting in his gut at the thought of Persephone, lying in Hospital, in the sort of condition that the Professor's stumbling words were indicating she was in.

Tom, himself, had sent the girl to the ward once already, but she'd taken a fall and eaten his hex intentionally - she'd prepared for that! But this…

"Professor!" The Mediwitch hissed once they'd arrived through the doors of the ward. "I've explicitly stated, once already, _no_ visitors!"

"Madame," Professor Slughorn said immediately, moving in close and gesturing back towards Tom. "This is Tom Riddle. He is her—" He looked at Tom who was looking past them both to the large curtained partition behind them.

Tom's focus was on the traces of bloodied handprints on the edges of the curtain where it must have been drawn shut in haste. His jaw tensed and he shifted his attention back to the adults in the room, taking several steps forward to close the distance. "Beau," he finished for the Professor and put a note of eagerness into his voice. "I swear not to disturb her Madame, but please, may I see her?" He let his stare flick to the curtain and back several times, to further imply his dismay.

The woman inhaled deeply through her nose, her own jaw tightening, nostrils flaring, but her eyes softened as she took in the young man before her and the anxiousness in him. "Ten minutes, Mister Riddle. She is stable and you may take her hand but do _not_ touch the wrappings! Am I understood?"

"Yes, Madame."

She nodded curtly to him and looked back to Professor Slughorn. "We shall be just here at my desk, call me immediately if she wakes."

Tom was staring intently at the curtain again. "She is asleep?" He asked in a dismal way that he knew would soften the Mediwitch further.

And it did; he heard it in her reply.

"She is…" The witch paused. "Yes, she is sleeping, Mister Riddle. She had a concerning… _fall_ down one of the moving staircases and is sleeping."

Tom looked back over his shoulder at the witch, nodded then set his eyes forward once more.

_Her lies were deplorable._

He approached the curtain with care, peeking around the edge to glimpse her before moving past the partition entirely.

Tom wasn't sure what he'd expected to see but when his gaze settled on her it was, unmistakably, his Persephone. He glanced around to see if there was a chair to drag near to her but found nothing, so just padded to her silently instead.

The sterile white sheets of the hospital bed were drawn up to her chest, tucked neatly around her with just her arms resting on the tops of the covers. Her arms were covered in an assortment of bandages from shoulder to wrist, a large square pad of gauze was spread over the side of her neck, and another set of wrappings wound around her head, fastening more gauze into place, though this one had a splotch of rusty brown where blood had seeped through and dried. Aside from, what he surmised, were her more serious injuries, she had a peppering of bruises appearing between the bandaged parts of her. There was a particularly nasty looking one marking the edge of her jaw that had already begun to shift through its spectrum of colours and her bottom lip was split, swollen, and bruised as well.

Tom felt that unpleasant gut twisting ache and a splash of stomach acid rise in his throat at the sight of her laid out as she was.

The creature should not have attacked her, should not have attacked _anyone_ last night! He controlled it _**completely**_ and it would not have disobeyed him; that was simply out of the question!

_Perhaps she got in its way._

_It would have had no choice but to strike if that had been the case,_ he reasoned.

A snake cornered would lash out with or without his consent.

_But she would not have been so foolish as to corner it._

Tom grimaced and another concerning thought entered his head.

_What if these injuries were caused by something else?_

His creature would be more prone to paralyze and kill…not bruise. Perhaps someone else, a student maybe, had come upon her in the halls and done this.

What little Tom knew of the trauma that kept Persephone from giving herself to him completely, surfaced in his mind. He felt a flush of heat wash over him at the thoughts that another man would handle her in these halls in such a way. Tom's teeth grit together as a palpable rage threatened to overtake him and he had to cycle his breathing until he had calmed once more.

_Persephone is a more than capable witch…_

He eyed her bandages, much more sternly, his temper at the cusp of boiling over still.

…_so what __**truly**__ did this to her…_

Tom glanced toward the other side of the room where he heard Professor Slughorn and the Mediwitch murmuring in their hushed tones and made a decision. He drew his wand from his robes and whispered a spell to loosen the bandages of the arm he was nearest to in an attempt to investigate.

His frown intensified when he saw what did, in fact, look like slashes and cuts from sharpened teeth grazing her flesh. He knew, in that instant, that she was lucky the beast had not punctured her clean through, lest she fall to the same fate as her old Housemate. Tom was toiling over how she could have been so foolish as to threaten it as she must have, causing it to strike, when he rolled her arm over to further inspect her injuries.

He barely restrained the hissed noise that left his lips and stumbled back from her bedside.

Tom's eyes focused intensely on the unwrapped portion of her arm.

_Impossible._

His eyes were hard, his glare so heated that it might have set the very walls in the ward on fire.

_IMPOSSIBLE._

He felt his lip curl automatically at the sight.

_**IMPOSSIBLE.**_

And yet—

Tom was barely able to pull his eyes away from the puckered flesh, the scar, that_** word**_ carved into the arm of the girl he'd proclaimed was his not moments ago, in time to spell the bandages back in place for the return of the adults.

"Time, Mister Riddle," the Mediwitch called out. She expected to drag a reluctant boy from his belle and was surprised to find him already marching towards her, distancing himself from the bed with haste.

Both she and the Professor stared after the boy in shock, missing the way the girl in the bed stirred, cracked open her eyes, and the corners of her lip twitched in the barest of smirks.

* * *

**A/N:** Thanks everyone for the support over the last month as well as your patience in waiting for the next update. :) Things start to pick up a little bit here on out. I feel I should re-warn you all that this story was marked dark for a reason.

I will remind you here that the future chapters will contain instances of the following:

**_Excessive violence, sexual themes, manipulative and controversial themes, wonky time shit, quasi-crazy Hermione, references to non-con, attempted non-con, and at least one instance of dub-con. The scenes of this nature included in the fic are pretty important to the story, so if it bothers you in the least, I suggest you not even try it._**

_**This is an AU Voldemort wins scenario and there is no redemption arc here. There is also an extensive use of time turners with blatant disregard for the preservation of timelines. In addition to all of that, there is an assortment of character deaths, some minor, some major including HP canon characters and OC's.**_

From here on out, there **_WILL NOT_** be warnings on individual chapters.

I repeat, _**NO WARNINGS OF ANY KIND WILL BE ANNOUNCED AT THE START OF FUTURE CHAPTERS.**_

If you're iffy about any of it, well, this should probably be your stop.

For those of you that are braving the content, see you soon. :)

-Slik


	17. Chapter 16-Filthy Little Secrets(Book I)

**16 – Filthy Little Secrets**

June 1943

Abraxas watched Tom from his seat far down the bench at their table in the Great Hall. Persephone had been in the hospital ward for days now, recovering, but Tom still hadn't let him take back up the seat next to him – the seat that had belonged to his Lord's witch for weeks now. Abraxas looked to his fellows across the table, all doing their best to shoot only covert glances at their leader as he scribbled furiously in an unremarkable black diary with his name emblazoned across the back in tiny gold letters. The fact that Tom's irritation was scrawled too blatantly all over his face while he wrote concerned them all.

It was the most out of sorts any of them had recalled seeing the man since before he'd first embarked on the path towards his ultimate goal of purification.

Abraxas was sure it would be another achingly silent morning until Silvas piped up to take a stab at soothing their Master. "Miss Callaghan should be released soon, Tom. I'm sure she will be—"

Tom's eyes shot up from his diary, his hand froze mid-flourish and the deathly glare that came from him silenced Rosier in half a second. If the man could have shriveled in on himself any more than he already did, it would have been one for the books.

It was then that Tom noticed the lot of them looking at him and, instead of the cool, condescending smoothness that usually coloured his voice when he took to berating them all, his lip curled in a sneer and an angry heat simmered within his eyes. "You all are not _nearly_ so clever enough for me to believe you have nothing to say. Out with it then." The men all cowered into their plates as Tom's gaze swept across them. "Lestrange, Nott, Mulciber—" Tom's eyes narrowed when they reached Abraxas and he hissed in a barely restrained, venomous whisper. "—_Malfoy._ You of all people would have something to say on Miss Callaghan's _condition_, wouldn't you?"

Abraxas paled, his already porcelain shaded skin turning ghostlike. "M-my Lord?" He knew Tom's title was to be uttered in public with caution, but the way his glare was drilling into him, Abraxas feared _not_ saying it.

"Miss Callaghan," Tom repeated plainly. "Are you not concerned about her? I seem to recall the pair of you being rather friendly after she arrived. Or am I mistaken?"

"N-no, sir—"

"No, you are not concerned about my witch's health?" Tom looked positively vicious. "Or no, I am not mistaken? Be _clear_, Malfoy…and I will consider your answers when we meet this evening in The Room."

Abraxas' head dipped down towards his plate again and he hid the tremble to his shoulders lest he anger Tom more for drawing a professor's attention. "M-my apologies. I am, of course, concerned for Miss Callaghan and wish her an expeditious recovery. I-I would also not be so foolish as to lie to you…m-my Lord…and say that I was not fond of her—" Tom's eyes narrowed and he flinched. "—how-however, she is your match, my Lord. Miss Callaghan is truly suited o-only f-f-f-for you."

A wholly different, suspicious, and ultimately _dangerous_ light entered Tom's gaze then. His hand tightened on his wand beneath the table and Tom made a casual thing of closing the distance between himself and Abraxas, reaching for a jar across the table at the same time he growled near the boy's ear. "And what do you mean by _that_, Abraxas? What do _you_ know of how well suited Persephone and I are for one another? What information were you privy to, that I was _**not?**_"

Abraxas was sweating now, entirely unsure as to how to respond. Nothing he'd said thus far had been the correct thing, and he was certain that the only thing that was keeping him from being a streak of blood and guts across the stone tiles was the mask Tom was trying to maintain in public.

Before Abraxas had a chance to respond, Professor Slughorn ambled up to their end of the table looking particularly proud of himself. "Tom! There you are, my boy!"

Tom's shoulders tightened imperceptibly before he relaxed into his more typical schoolboy posture. He straightened up next to Abraxas and turned enough to give his Head of House a welcoming smile. "Good morning, Professor," Tom said without a hint of the anger simmering beneath the surface. "What brings you to us this morning? Have you an errand you need tended to before class?"

Slughorn tutted and waved a dismissive hand at Tom before placing it on his shoulder in a warm gesture. The portly man leaned in with a lopsided and secretive smirk. "Nothing like that, Tom. I just thought you should know that Miss Callaghan is being released from the hospital wing today!"

Tom's eye and corner of his mouth twitched at her name, but he forced a smile and as doting a look as he could muster through the mixture of feelings roiling in his gut. "_Today_, Professor? That's brilliant!"

Professor Slughorn's smirk turned into a great, beaming smile and he preened a bit, running his hands up and down his lapels smugly. "I thought you might be pleased at the news. You're the first to know!" His brow furrowed. "Well...first outside of the Mediwitch and myself, of course. …and the Headmaster…well and—" Slughorn waved a hand around as if swatting that course of thought away. "Never mind all that. You are _one_ of the firsts to know. I've some other news for you, as well!"

The way the older man had leaned in just then, looking around in that horrible, antsy way of poor secret keeping made something sour hit the back of Tom's tongue. "I beg that you not keep me in suspense, Professor."

The man chuckled and patted Tom on the back heartily before replacing the hand back onto his lapel. "I've arranged for you to be her escort after her release this afternoon!"

"I'm _what?_" Tom asked, the placating inflection slipping out of place long enough for his violent disdain to make an appearance.

Professor Slughorn didn't seem to notice in the _least, _far too busy being too pleased. "Oh yes – and before you say anything, it was _no_ trouble at all, dear boy. I've seen the way you look at her…and she at you." Slughorn paused long enough to nudge Tom with an elbow, a grin on his face. "I thought it may help her feel a bit better about…well, about this whole nasty situation."

Tom was fighting to keep his expression neutral or filled with something as close to excitement as possible at least in an attempt to not arouse the Professor's suspicions. "Brilliant…Professor…just _brilliant._ Thank you."

The older wizard nodded and clapped Tom on the back. "I'll let you boys get back to breakfast now. I just wanted to deliver the news!"

Tom bid his professor farewell with a tight smile until he was clear from his vision, then turned back to the table with a scowl taking up residence shortly thereafter.

_Escort Persephone. _

_Filthy._

_Dirty._

_DECEITFUL._

_**MUDBLOOD.**_

A growl crept past Tom's lips and he buttered his toast angrily, his followers wisely diverting their stares anywhere but in his direction.

He'd decided that he would allow her to explain her treacherous secret before killing her. She had too much power swirling in that little body of hers to dispose of her without learning at least that. She'd been so promising. She'd been the first witch to catch his attention as she did. So full of cunning and brilliance and…

"UGH!" Tom jerked the toast he'd bitten into away from his mouth with a sneer. He glared hard at it and then realized that he'd not buttered the piece at all and, instead, slathered it with orange marmalade. A low snarl escaped him as he tossed it away and snatched up his things then pushed off from the table to head to the potions lab and prepare for class.

Mulciber stared at Tom's back, jaw hanging open at his tantrum. "Should we…"

"No."

Everyone startled at the quiet, single worded answer from Rophelius Lestrange who was also staring hard after his master's departure. They all shared in a grimace at Tom's sudden disappearance and returned awkwardly to their meals.

**. . . . .**

Tom sat in the library, very pointedly _not_ in the nook he and that filthy Mudblood had shared on multiple occasions, looking over several texts as he passed the time with studying while waiting for Persephone to be released. He'd absorbed more than what would be required to recall to earn O's on all subjects. He was mostly occupying his mind with as much as he could to _not_ think about strangling the life out of the witch as soon as he got his hands on her.

Treacherous harlot.

If she'd come from a future where he'd succeeded in his task, she knew – she _knew_ – from the beginning, of his plight.

She _knew_…

Tom's head shot up from his book and another thought occurred to him.

_How much DID she know?_

By the sounds of her bitterness and from what glimpses of her future keepers he had seen, she was an enemy…so she might not have known _that_ much at all.

His hand clenched of its own will around the quill he was using for notes when he lingered too long on the thought of her Master. When he thought of the man-of the unrecognizable lump of torn flesh and broken bones that she'd allowed him to see-Tom's intense loathing of the acts she'd never once given name to sent a renewed flush of anger through him. His mind cycled through what little of her he truly understood and tried to put the pieces into place.

An enemy, yes – she would have had to have been.

Dead – obviously not.

Was she a proper slave, then? To him? No…not to him…to his supporters though, surely.

Were these people - her keepers - his? Did they mean something to him? Unlikely.

People, as a general rule, meant _nothing._ There were strong ones and there were weak ones. The weak - so commonly the Muggles and their kind - existed to be ruled, and the strong - the Wizarding world - battled amongst themselves until the strongest set them into their proper places.

Tom thought again on the wrecked corpses of man and woman that his witch had shown him…

Persephone - enemy Mudblood - she did not fit so nicely into these circles. To discount her, to deem her one of the weak ones...

His mouth turned down in a deep frown as he tried to reconcile her place in his world.

_**Why**_ had she come for him? She'd said she had come to help him…with what? To be a better man?

The picture of her pleased smile as he'd gloated about the basilisk and the recollection of her more than pleased noises when he'd sought those decadent tones to further bask in his achievements crept into his mind. She had a particular one he favored when he laved his tongue over her ear that made her fingers dig into his flesh—

Tom slammed a door on his traitorous thoughts with grit teeth and a growl.

_No. Not a better man._

Had she not mentioned she'd sought to be more? More than the filthy Mudblood slave she would become…

Tom pondered that concept.

He thought on the destruction she'd wrought in the few visions she'd shared with him.

He thought on the brilliance she exhibited on the day to day there, in his time, and what she could have possibly had to do to _get_ anywhere near him in time and space. Just the number of calculations and figures she would have had to map to land into as specific as a place in time as she did…

Tom summoned his diary from his bag and began to write once more.

While he surely would not truly have her as his witch, perhaps she could be brought to heel as his _pet_ now that he understood more of what he was dealing with. She would make a fine trophy animal once he'd brought her in line.

Yes. There were places more suited to one like Persephone Callaghan, he decided, and the grave was not one of them.

**. . . . .**

"Here, dear," the Mediwitch said softly, "Mister Riddle will be along shortly, we should make sure you're decent before then."

Hermione smiled politely at the woman, accepting the robe to wear over her pyjamas that she'd been stewing in for the past few days. "Thank you Madame," she said sweetly. Hermione wrapped the plush cloth around herself and smiled after the Mediwitch until she'd passed from her field of vision then promptly dropped any sort of pandering smile. She took another glance around the ward, making sure it was as empty as it had been since she'd been admitted from her "attack", and went about fiddling with the bandages on her left arm.

The injuries she'd manifested on herself were almost completely healed over but Bellatrix's handy work was a glaring piece of horrific artwork scribed into her arm. She sighed, running her fingers over the gruesome scar and even after the fatal punishment she'd delivered to the dark witch, Hermione's stomach turned at the feel of it. The body she possessed, this fresh, young specimen of herself, still held the raw raised designs and ridges of the freshly carved word. As she stared at it, she remembered how long it'd taken the thing to heal over and resemble any other sort of scar the _first_ time she had to suffer through it; that she had to experience it once more...well, the ends would justify the means.

Hermione frowned at the wound and, a bit reluctantly, called her glamour into position. If she were being honest, it had been almost relaxing being laid up in her cot with her stacks of books to read at her leisure and not worry about holding such spells in place all the time. While she was about as eager to continue viewing the scrawled slur as she was to get hit by the Hogwarts Express, she was not looking forward to the persistent pulsing headache that would come from anchoring the glamour in place again for so long.

Hermione had finished resetting her bandages and picking at her clothes to be less scandalously garbed by the time Tom had arrived. The Mediwitch announced his presence and with a knowing twinkle in her eye – one that Hermione was fast becoming tired of seeing across the faculty – left them to themselves for a moment.

"Tom," Hermione said with a scratchy throat and a smile. "It's good to see you."

Tom returned her pleasant greeting with a tight one of his own, not sure if he was imagining her wistful inflection or not. He'd not been up to visit her since he was first alerted of her injuries and, for professors that thought they were so clever, not a one of them said anything about that. Tom hadn't thought anything of it, still wretchedly angry over Persephone's secret-keeping, but as she looked over him with an expression of softness seldom caught on her face and her voice transforming from weak and tired, to something with a tinge of excitement, it was all he _could_ think of.

"Likewise," he lied. He pretended not to notice the downward twitch of her lips at the curt reply and closed the distance between them, offering her a hand. When her delicate fingers brushed over his palm, he tried to concentrate on the individual touches of each dainty fingertip to keep himself from jerking away and swiping his hand on his trousers to wipe away the filth of her touch. "Shall we go? I am sure you are eager to return to your dorm for some proper rest that cannot be had in a communal sick room."

Hermione watched his face as he spoke, at the way he was silently refusing to look at her and the way he was acting certain that she wouldn't notice; she nearly slipped and started laughing. To think of this boy Lord's attempts at subtlety and manipulation versus what he would become and how much growth would be needed to get there…it was amazing. The fact that he'd fooled anyone at all at this age seemed suspect to her; though, to be fair, within the captivity of her masters she _had _become quite adept at reading the tiniest of nuances that would lead to her torture and torment. Perhaps he was much better at it than he appeared to her when it came to everyone else…_perhaps._

"Rest…_real _rest, would be splendid."

She allowed herself to be pulled to her feet, stumbling from the sudden weight on her joints after having been in a cot for days – it was only partially an act. Out of reflex, Tom caught her in his arms and she immediately felt him tense when he realized how much of her he'd actually come into contact with. Hermione tucked her head beneath his chin, her hands on his shoulders and murmured a soft apology that puffed her breath across the bare skin of his neck, sending a shiver through him. She smiled with amusement, well out of his sight, as he restrained himself. She felt his muscles twitching, fighting between shoving her away and acting as her doting _beau_-the title he'd claimed over her had left her snickering to herself well into that day.

Tom shook his head and rearranged her on her feet until she was back to standing mostly on her own. "Come, let's get you to the tower. At least it is not a far walk from here."

Hermione nodded, watched him shrink the books on the nightstand and summon them into the bag at her bedside before shouldering it on the arm he hadn't proffered to her.

The walk to the tower entry was, indeed, not far. When they arrived, Hermione did well to lock her enjoyment at his minute fidgets away as it became clear to him that he could not simply drop her recently injured self at the base of the tower; he would actually have to climb the spiral stairs with her. She was sure he slipped and his mouth turned in a grimace for at least a full second before his polite mask returned.

"I'm sure I can make the climb on my own if it vexes you," Hermione said softly, making sure her words cracked at some point mid-sentence. Tom's gaze snapped to her from inspecting the height to the top – and the eagle knocker that held a great amount of distaste for him – and he frowned openly at the idea, as if offended.

"Nonsense, Miss Callaghan. I've been assigned your escort and your escort I shall be."

Hermione smiled and gave him a proper blush that seemed to throw him and they ascended the stairs.

Upon reaching the knocker, the carved eagle's eyes narrowed at the sight of Tom, lingering long enough that he would know it was displeased at his presence. Tom gave the thing a proper sneer before it refocused on the witch at his side and presented her with a riddle.

"_You struggle to regain me. When I'm lost, you struggle to obtain me. I pass no matter your will, but I'm your slave to kill. What am I?"_

Hermione snorted a small laugh, the noise startling both the knocker and Tom, though upon providing her answer, she could see Tom's mouth trying so very hard to curve in a smirk. "Time," she'd said plainly.

With a shudder, the door released its magical seal and swung inward to allow them both entry.

Hermione limped past the threshold, scanning the empty common room and glancing back over her shoulder to Tom who was lingering awkwardly on the other side. He was examining what he could see of the richly colored drapes and rugs decorating the inside of the round room, eyes lingering hungrily on the near literal mountain of books contained within thick maple cases.

She reached for his hand, grinning when he jumped at her touch as if he'd simply forgotten she existed for a moment. "Come in?"

Something flickered in his eyes at the offer and Hermione could sense his hesitation.

_Time to test your resolve, Tom Riddle._ _Let's see how ready you are…_

Hermione allowed her frown to reach her eyes and dropped his hand, her fingers lingering on his as she withdrew her touch. She diverted her gaze to her slippered feet and pushed some tangles of hair back behind her ear. "My apologies, Tom," she said quietly. "I fear I was a bit starved for company in the ward. I hadn't realized how much I'd come to look forward to yo- _our_…sessions… in the library until I spent all that time under the haze of potions and draughts." Her hands smoothed over the pastel cotton pyjama bottoms she sported and she looked up, presenting him with a weak smile once more, letting the fatigue from her constant restructuring and refortification of her mental walls sneak into the creases around her eyes. "Thank you…for taking time out of your Saturday to fetch me. I won't presume to keep you longer than necessary."

Tom watched her turn away to disappear into the tower and with each wobbly step she took, his teeth grit together.

He needed to speak with her about the _'incident'_ anyway.

He would talk to her about it and gain additional insight regarding her attack for when he approached her later for a more _serious _discussion about her distasteful heritage and, more importantly, how she _**withheld**_ it from him.

_It will only take a moment_, he told himself.

The door had already began to shut when Tom laid an arm across the wood, propping it open and earning himself an ornery noise from the door knocker. Scoffing at the bird head, he passed through the doorway and presented Persephone with a charming smile. "It is I who should apologize." It was his turn to double check the occupancy of the common room and he moved in closer to her side. "I had promised that I would keep you safe, had I not? I failed to come through on that promise." The tint of bitterness rolled off his tongue with ease enough that he decided not to think on those implications for very long. Tom stroked his fingertips down her arm, dancing over her bandages with an expertly formed expression of remorse flashing instead of the glare he wanted to turn on her as he glanced at the spot where he knew her scarred brand lay. "I was researching possibilities for how I'd lost control of the creature and neglected to see you during your stay."

Hermione shrugged even though she knew he was paying no attention to anything save for the bandages hiding what he desired to see most. "I don't blame you, Tom." She'd closed the scant distance between them without him realizing and his head came up in a jolt, finding her near enough their noses brushed. "But I find I did very much miss this," she murmured, brushing her lips over his. Her lids fluttered shut and she felt him straighten, his spine stiffening and teeth clacking together abruptly at her touch. It took a great deal of her willpower to not chuckle and she busied herself with running her tongue along the seam of his lips instead. The teasing, massaging touch of her tongue to his was something he'd shown _quite_ a lot of interest in during their library meetings, and that late afternoon was no different. It was as if she'd flipped a release and the taut line of his shoulders slackened and he allowed her further probing. She suckled lightly on his bottom lip and pulled away with a whispered, "I found that I missed _you_, Tom."

Tom was given no time to respond before Persephone had slanted her mouth over his once more. She coaxed his hands to her waist, beneath the hem of her shirt at the line where her trousers ended and her soft, bare skin began.

His hands tightened on her, wanting to bruise that _filthy_ fair skin of hers.

He drew in a sharp breath at the rough nip to his lips and his lungs filled with air along with her _disgusting _smell of beautiful irises and sun and parchment.

The stupid Mudblood witch made this sound, something that caught in her throat, something heavy and thick and what really _only_ could have been a moan.

_Slag._

Tom forced the word into his mind bitterly and with as much insistence as he could muster. He pointedly ignored the droop of her robe and the top few buttons that'd seen to unfasten themselves on her top.

_Trollop._

Persephone had continued to kiss him, to force his response with the way her tongue circled his and she mewled and whimpered. He wasn't paying that close attention-simply playing along with her ministrations until he could reasonably extract himself. His teeth sank into the plump flesh of her bottom lip.

_Only to soothe her suspicions_, he assured himself. He was simply playing along.

Tom remained in complete control of his faculties…

…until she'd guided those hands of his up the smooth expanse of her stomach, under the fabric of her top, _well_ beyond their previously established boundaries of hemlines and the like. She led his touch all the way up to where his thumbs brushed the undersides of her breasts.

Her very, very _bare_ breasts.

The most unwelcome image from his first time in the muddled mess of her mind came soaring back to the forefront of his.

Her eyes lidded, glossy, and glazed.

Head tossed back and all her dark curls brushing the tops of his thighs.

Mouth dropped open with her tongue curled enticingly against the backs of her top teeth.

Riding him with great, panting pleasure painted all across her face as all of those tidy curves of hers bounced atop his cock.

And his vision blacked for a long enough moment that when it all refocused into wild color, he had his witch pressed to one of the grand bookcases. Her legs curled around his waist with his hands supporting her rear, rubbing her clothed core all along his hardening length, and her hands tangled in his locks as she murmured words of encouragement as he ravaged her neck.

Hermione wove her fingers through Tom's hair, holding his head to her and breathing out heated whimpers of pleasured sounds. She clenched her eyes shut tightly, the convincing noises falling from her throat with practiced ease – Rodolphus would always be over so much sooner if she'd acted as if she…

_No—_Hermione clamped down and kicked out that name from her head. She scoured it from her brain and dusted any remnants of it under the rug. She wouldn't think of him. She wouldn't think of that grown piece of filth. If she was ever to have true control over the Dark Lord, she needed to purge that horrid, wretched, terrible man from her mind.

_Tom would stop._

His hands massaged her rear and she heard her name rumbled into the meat of her shoulder.

_Tom would always stop._

She felt him kissing a wet path from her neck to her ear down her jaw towards her mouth and it was nothing like…

_Tom would always stop…_

His touches, his caresses, they were everything he'd learned she enjoyed. Her forced mewls of pleasure were shifting and beginning to escape her beyond her control. Her heart was racing – _actually_ racing – in response to him. The pressure of her past, of her anxiety in her mind was pressing in, but she replayed _their_ sessions in her head over and over…

She thought of Tom, not his older horrible self.

Not Rodolphus.

She thought of Tom.

**_Only_** Tom.

_He would stop. Even now. Even as they were now, if she asked. All she had to do was—_

"Who's down he—_OH MY MERLIN!"_

Tom nearly leapt from his skin at the new voice. As it was, he did well not to drop Hermione straight onto the common room floor. They both scrambled suddenly away from each other, flushed and sweating with Tom's arousal obvious and evident…

_"Myrtle,"_ Hermione hissed. "What are you doing out of bed?"

"Oh gods, Persephone, Mister Riddle I-I-I I'm so sorry. I didn't—_I'msosorry!_"

Myrtle's face was a bright shade of crimson and she was doing her best to look everywhere but at the pair of them, there, caught doing _that_.

With the appearance of another person, Tom snapped back to himself and realized the sorts of things he'd been about ready to do to the witch who was panting, chest heaving invitingly, a mere metre or so away. He swiped a sweaty palm over his face and didn't even bother to properly set his mask in place before he muttered a hasty excuse and fled the room. He heard Persephone behind him, her voice agitated and beginning to verbally flay the idiot schoolmate of hers, and he found he simply couldn't care.

_He'd almost…_

_He'd very nearly…_

…_with a MUDBLOOD…_

…_**willingly.**_

Tom swallowed thickly and ran a hand back through his hair, sneer affixed solidly in place as he traversed the corridors and stairwells. His hurried steps took him as far from Ravenclaw tower as he could get into the safety of his cold, dank dungeons. He'd frantically stripped himself of all his clothing by the time he'd reached the showers and opened the faucet to a frigid and relentless spray.

Tom willed the water to do something for him. He needed it to wash away the feel of her touches, the sound of her voice, the near animalistic need he felt to bury himself in her when she was close. He wanted to be rid of the unquenchable desire to wallow in her heady magic, her ruthlessness, her sweet, supple curves and her wild mane that crackled with energy…he needed her gone.

He needed to _**want**_ her gone.

He growled and slammed his fists to the wet tile wall and pressed his forehead between them with several animated snarls to follow.

The sight – the _sound_ – of her replayed behind his eyelids and in his ears repeatedly and he wished for the water to tear it all away, rip it from his memory, scrub his mind of her and every way she'd squirreled into his head.

Alas, it did none of these things.

The Basilisk remained docile.

Night passed into day without incident for any student.

And one Tom Marvolo Riddle engaged in very little sleep.

* * *

**A/N:** Thanks to those of you still reading! The next chapter is done and being beta'd (and is long...very, very long) and then there is a short epilogue type dealie to signify the end of "Book 1." Each section for Persephone will still be housed here under the one title and chapter collection, but will just be divided into stages essentially.

I really appreciate all the reviews everyone has left and the continued support you all give! I am optimistically hoping this story will be my first (ever?!) to actually break 1k reviews. It's just a number...but I won't deny it's really very awesome to see next to something you've written and wanted to share with people! Thanks again for that all!

On a related note, I do have to say that I'm sorry to folks that have sent me messages or questions in reviews that I haven't been able to respond to. mobile does not really like working on my phone so it's difficult to have enough time to sit down and reply to everything most times. I am trying to get through what I can, but I don't know how long it'll take because when I actually have access to a proper desktop, I am mostly trying to write as much as I can so I can update more frequently.

If you have questions_,_ tumblr is surprisingly an easier way for me to reply throughout the day. I still struggle with having enough hours in a day to do things, but try me there for the best (quickest) results I can give. Name is dulce-de-leche-go so feel free to give me a holler. :)

-Slik


	18. Chapter 17 - Point Of No Return (Book I)

**A/N: **Warnings. All of them. Many warnings. If you're sensitive to...anything, probably don't read. Also, since it's been a bit since my last update, this did not receive the thumbs up from my S&amp;G beta. Anything still lingering here that's wrong and awful is mine (the whole wrong and awful thing is mine!).

* * *

**17 – Point Of No Return**

June 13th, 1943

By the time Tom saw Persephone again, it was late in the afternoon for dinner in the Hall. He had spent most of his Sunday attempting to study and stuck in his thoughts about what he was going to do with the deceitful witch – what he _could_ do aside from kill her.

Of all the things he'd discovered over the course of the day, the one single, solitary item that he kept circling back to was the reality that he did _not_ want Persephone Callaghan dead.

Punished, yes.

Tamed, yes.

_His_, yes.

Dead, unfortunately no.

With this in mind, Tom had climbed all the way up to Ravenclaw tower's door and suffered through the pretentious side-eye from the magicked, moulded bird head as he rapped on the wood. It took several persistent minutes, but finally, the weary look of some seventh year boy peered around the door.

The boy looked Tom up and down. He recognized him immediately, but aside from the twitch to his lips at his inspection, didn't acknowledge it and said, "Yes?"

"Persephone Callaghan," Tom said plainly, abruptly. "Is she here?"

The Ravenclaw's expression _did_ change at that, his distaste towards the witch obvious and something about the look made Tom bristle.

_Mudblood as she is, she has more 'wit beyond measure' in her little finger than you,_ Tom thought snidely.

Tom tamped down his line of thought as soon as he realized where it was leading and barely resisted snapping at the boy. The harsh edges of his tone smoothed and he relaxed his posture until he was leaning so slightly forward, speaking with warmth and reason in his words and a small conspiratorial smile. "Sorry, I didn't mean to snap—ah…sorry again, I didn't catch your name."

"Stuart," the boy said. Stuart was blinking oddly at Tom as if questioning everything he'd ever heard of the bloke.

"Ah! Stuart. Sorry, Stuart, didn't mean for you to get caught in the crossfire. Me and the Missus had a bit of a quarrel and I was hoping to find her here…you know, escort her down to dinner and smooth it over."

Stuart eyed Tom and, after a moment, snorted and shook his head. "It's true, then?" At Tom's questioning look, Stuart nodded his head back towards the girls' dorms. "You and Callaghan?" He chuckled at the affirmative nod, missing the way a single brow went up in response to the secretive humour. "Good luck with that one, she's…_touched._"

Tom's smile widened a fraction and he tilted his head. "What do you mean?"

The query seemed to put Stuart in all the better of a mood and he opened the door, patted Tom on the back and guided him inside with an arm across the back of his shoulders. "Good luck," Stuart said again then leaned in to whisper, _"because Callaghan doesn't play Snap with a full deck…if you know what I mean."_

_Crazy. The boy was calling Persephone crazy. _

Tom felt his lip curling towards a frightful sneer at the implication that _he_, Tom Riddle, would invest his time and efforts – even in this play for the public – in something as useless as a crazy girl. Persephone Callaghan wasn't crazy, she was brilliant, she was—Tom stopped himself again and turned that sneer into a boyish grin. He laughed and whispered back, _"Yes, well, you know what they say about the crazy ones, mate."_

Stuart laughed outright and nodded enthusiastically, missing the heated and dangerous look in Tom's eyes as he reveled in the mockery of their classmate. "You're an alright bloke, Riddle."

"I do try." He let the Ravenclaw settle himself before he said, "Sorry again, but do you think you might—"

"Ah! Right, right, wait here a tick and I'll get Melody to fetch her."

Tom smiled, nodded, and thanked the boy as he left his side to approach a girl that looked to be in his year. By their familiarity during the brief exchange, Tom surmised that the pair was an item of some sort – he filed the information away for later to do some research on their ancestry once he had a spare moment. The girl, _Melody_, disappeared somewhere up a staircase and returned shortly thereafter with a still limping Persephone trailing after her in a simple skirt and blouse, looking rumpled and sporting a slightly confused and tired expression. The moment she spotted him, Tom watched a delicate flush colour her cheeks and she stuttered in her step.

Stuart gave him a conspiratory wink but didn't linger. The other eyes in the room, however, they almost outright _stared_ at the pair of them as the distance between them was closed.

"Tom," Persephone said sounding as though she'd just been roused from a nap. "What are you doing here?" She motioned to the common room with surprise evident across her features.

Tom glanced at the onlookers and - if any of them kept looking when his stare would lock with theirs - he held their gaze long enough that they would look away, some shrinking in on themselves after the fact. Once the nosiest of the nest had been dissuaded, he refocused his attention onto the witch whose mouth was quirked in the tiniest smirk and he reached out to brush her hair back, off of her shoulders. "Walk with me."

Persephone's smirk faltered and her head cocked to the side like a bird's but eventually she nodded and said, "Alright."

**. . . . .**

"Do you wish to get dinner?"

Hermione peeked out of the corner of her eye to examine Tom's too neutral expression then faced forward again. "I'd much rather you stop stalling and tell me what is bothering you."

At that Tom's step slowed to a stop. Hermione padded a few steps ahead before she realized he'd stopped walking and turned back to see him watching her with a stiffness to his posture. He looked as if he were about to offer placating words but then, seeing the amusement dancing in her eyes, he relaxed.

"Certainly it is not that obvious," Tom said with distaste.

She shrugged. "To me, yes. To the general populace? Unlikely. To your minions? _Certainly_ not."

Tom sighed. "I would like to discuss the…_incident_ with you."

"Ah." Hermione frowned and glanced back over her shoulder then back down the rest of the quiet corridor. "To the library then?"

"I had some place closer in mind," Tom said with a shake of his head. "There's a classroom down the way here that hasn't been in use for the term. Aside for the occasional students tucked away in it misbehaving after-hours, it hasn't seen much use."

Her eyebrows went up at his suggestion.

Tom, upholding his image as her beau, smirked and offered her his arm, mentally preparing himself for her filmy, grubby hands to encircle it. "Unless you have objections to being locked away in a room of such ill repute with such a wicked and dastardly individual as myself?"

Hermione looped her hand around his arm, chuckling. "I'm rather looking forward to it, if I'm being honest," she said slyly. _And she was. OH, how she was looking forward to it…_

He flashed her his most devilish smirk and folded her hand into the crook of his elbow, proceeding to walk with her through the mostly deserted corridors to an empty classroom on the first floor. After checking the room to be sure none of the aforementioned students were present in the space, Tom went about warding and sealing it for their upcoming conversation.

Hermione padded around the quiet room, running her fingertips across the surfaces of the sparse pieces of furniture still housed within and pushed to the outskirts of the room. She plodded slowly, humming very quietly to herself while Tom finished. She felt the dramatic shift in the air once he'd finally completed and locked the place up thoroughly. Hermione smiled inwardly at the number of different spells tickling her senses. When she turned back to see him leveling his wand at her, she feigned shock, her own wand in hand but out at her side while she fixed him with a hurt look.

"What's going on, Tom?"

"_Quiet_, you. _I_ will be asking the questions this evening. And no more _GAMES_!"

Hermione bit the corner of her lip at that, worrying it between her teeth and trying desperately not to grin; this only seemed to rile the wizard more.

Tom bared his teeth and took a handful of heavy, angry strides to close the gap between them, his yew wand point now merely a hand's breadth away from her face. "Did you suspect that I wouldn't find out?"

"About _what_, Tom?" She asked sweetly, earning her a growl. Hermione felt the new spell slam into her from his silent cast and then root her feet in place. She had but a moment to appreciate the force of it when he wrenched her left arm up between them and gave her another snarl.

"About _this!_" He grit out another incantation that sliced both her sleeve and the bandages from her arm with a dramatic flourish. When his glare zeroed in on the blank forearm, Tom growled menacingly. "Remove it," he demanded, "Remove the bloody thing, you _filth_!"

Hermione didn't even flinch at the insult, just blinked sweetly at him and released the glamour that she held so tightly in place so that the angry, gnarled lettering came into focus. With the release of the spell as well as the concentration needed to keep it anchored came a liberating wave of relief, something akin to a good, long stretch in the morning to start one's day. She loosed a contented noise that snapped Tom's gaze back to her face along with what she guessed was another unwelcome reaction he tried to stifle as quickly as it came.

"Better?" Hermione asked.

As if freshly reminded of her blood status in that instant, Tom shoved her arm away and jabbed his wand to her throat. "Precisely how long did you suspect you would be able to keep such a thing from me, Callaghan?"

She shrugged delicately. "As long as I desired."

Tom sneered, his anger bubbling at the way the witch didn't even bat a lash at his presence or the threat of his magic. "For a time traveler who fancies herself so clever, you appear to have overlooked the miniscule detail of _**the-entire-foundation**_ of my plans!" The point of the wood slid along her neck to the hollow beneath her chin, tilting her head up until she had no choice but to turn her Cheshire smile and taunting eyes up to meet his. "Or was that not quite the future that you came from?" he asked snidely. "By the label on your arm, I somehow doubt your reality was very much different."

Hermione rubbed her thumb along the underside of the crooked wand in her palm, earning a nasty jab to the chin until she settled. Tom looked incensed that she didn't drop the thing in its entirety but he seemed unwilling to press that particular issue, at least at the moment. She ran her tongue along the insides of her teeth and said, "No, not that much different. You succeeded, did I ever tell you that? I cannot recall…it all blurs together so..." Even with the offhanded delivery of her statement, Tom perked up and seemed as though he was resisting preening at the notion; it made her chuckle. "I came here to help you succeed once again but…I must admit that I was hoping to educate you in regards to the Muggle blood you so foolishly think is so dirty."

He growled at the mention of Muggle anything, his pleased disposition fizzling out at the word. "Disgusting creatures! Them and their kind! Ignorant fools!"

His venomous hatred towards them drew a chortle from her. Hermione cocked her head to one side with a soft sigh. "Oh Tom," she said, "You're much smarter, much more _brilliant_ than to truly hold on to the ideal that excessive, obsessive inbreeding alone inherently begets power. Look at _me._"

Despite his every desire _not_ to, his eyes did span down her body for a sparse few seconds before he shook it off and went back to glaring. "_Filth,_" he barked again. "What other treacherous lies have you been feeding throughout my circle?"

Hermione blinked at him slowly, her lashes sweeping in a long, dramatic bat at him, framing the serene smile she continued to sport. "There was no attack, of course."

His eyes narrowed. "No…" Tom bristled once again, the tip of his wand trembling in his angry grip.

_She'd staged the whole thing? _

He thought again of her sentiments towards the beast before bidding him farewell prior to opening the Chamber.

'_Oh, no. I've had enough of that creature for a lifetime.'_

_Of course she did. _

The gross oversight made him want to flip a desk and he snarled. "To what purpose have you revealed this…wretched truth to me, Persephone?"

"I told you, I'd hoped to educate you and, in doing so, find a better place for myself in such a world than at the feet of your dogs." Hermione spoke easily, almost kindly, until the last few words; those became tinted and weighed down with her crisp and clear hatred.

Tom scoffed. "There is no other place for one such as you _but_ at the feet of my followers. You should be made to wallow within the mud that you were conceived!"

The words felt hollow as they left his lips, also disjointed and decidedly foul. What's more, he could feel the air thin around them with Persephone's rising anger that belied the placid expression she entertained. Tom tightened his jaw as well as the hold on his wand, feeling the wood groan against his intent towards the woman that had won at least some of its loyalty. He couldn't kill her with it…by the founders, he still didn't _want_ to.

"And here I thought you liked me, Tom," Hermione said lowly, a wicked light flickering to life in her dark eyes.

Tom twisted his wrist as if tightening his focus on her, as if he _needed_ to when they were but an arm's length away. "I assure you, had I realized that you were from such poor breeding stock, I would not have bothered to even look at you, let alone touch you."

"You cut me deeply," she mocked. "All those stolen kisses—"

"Be silent—"

"—those heated stares—"

"I warn you, Persephone! Another word and I'll—"

"—and mostly the way I _**know**_ your prick aches for the day that I finally let-you-_in_!"

Hermione cast on him suddenly, a jolt of force knocking them apart enough to cause them both to stumble, but Tom was quick to rebound and his first curse came out in a growl.

"I will cut out that wretched tongue of yours!"

She shielded against his spell. "But only days ago you _yearned_ for it!"

His second one burst from his wand in a shower of violet light. She dodged most of its effects, only the tips of her hair getting caught and severed in the process. "You will be brought to your knees with the rest of your lot!"

"We _had_ been making such progress towards THAT particular fantasy of yours—"

Tom's next spell cut her off mid-sentence and she parried the blast, the force behind it causing her frame to shudder from it.

"_**BE SILENT!"**_

When her arm had stopped tingling, she looked to see she'd actually taken a portion of the curse and her somewhat healed lacerations had been reopened. Hermione eyed her injury briefly and turned her gaze forward once more, feasting her eyes on a red-faced, glaring Tom Riddle. He appeared well and truly frazzled, conflicted at best, at the warring ideas of his lingering desires for her despite learning of her heritage. While such lewd innuendo was not inherently her style, Hermione could not ignore the fantastic results; they were proving to be precisely what was needed to push his patience past the brink.

Both of them eyed each other from either side of the cleared space in the center of the classroom. Tom's shoulders were heaving with his angered breaths and Hermione was bowed slightly forward, her shields in place, panting only mildly and, mostly, watching his every move with a predator's eyes.

"You will find…Tom…that I am nothing less than your equal. You seek me out because of it. Beyond the physical, your magic searches for me, for _mine,_ like a moth to the flame."

Hermione had begun to move, slowly and so slightly that it was barely noticeable. She held Tom's eyes from beneath the fall of her hair and he seemed lost in the dark chaos she knew had settled within her young body since her possession.

"You and I aren't so different, Tom Riddle," Hermione said lowly. "The taste of me that you've had, the power I know you desire…it's a product of your success. _I_ am a product of the kingdom you've created. And it's only a fraction of what it could be, what it _will_ be if you release the prejudice you've taken into your mind."

The way she moved was haunting and Tom recalled her expert steps from within The Room. Every movement was an exercise in fluid efficiency. Not a wasted breath, nor a wasted twitch of muscle.

"I'd thought we would do well together, Tom," she said softly, watching the way his wand arm just barely dipped as she neared him again.

His glare was still heated and firmly fixed on her, but it had gained a different interest as she closed in, as she reached out and placed her empty hand on the inside of his forearm and stroked a light line of touches up from wrist to elbow and back. When he still had not struck her down, when his head bobbed and tilted with her own beyond his realization and she started to tuck herself into what would be the circle of his arms, she boldly brushed her nose to his. Hermione offered him a smile and with it the lines in his shoulders and back eased minutely despite his struggle to maintain them.

"We could share the seat over the world…you and I…" she said on a shared breath.

Tom's lids drooped at her honeyed words and the soft, smooth strokes of her nails over his sleeve. The witch, _this witch,_ was scum and refuse and came from every single thing he hated, everything he'd sworn to hate and raze from the world…but he was having a great deal of difficulty refuting her words.

They made sense.

They made _too_ much sense.

They were, all at once, _**too**_ compelling.

Tom's vision cleared and his eyes came open with a start. His free hand shot out to grasp her by the throat and he shoved her bodily away with a roar of outrage. "How _DARE_ you?!"

Hermione had stumbled back and was grinning in the wake of the failed _imperius_ curse. She'd known his mental defenses were far too well fortified to be so easily taken by it, but found herself taking in immense satisfaction in the indignant rage that overflowed his young, adolescent body.

"Y-you—" Tom ran a hand back through his hair several times, pausing to dig the heel of his palm into his temple as if pushing something increasingly unpleasant _out._ He shook his head, held the side of it once more and the whites of his eyes were so slightly more visible in those moments. "I would rather _**ROT**_ than sully the throne with the touch from one of such gritty, murky blood!"

And in that instant, Hermione appeared remarkably smug.

"In that case, _My Lord,_ perhaps we should consult your _father_ about your pedigree before we discuss further ideals regarding your precious throne."

The mention of his father made something heavy and acidic and terrible manifest in the pit of Tom's gut.

_She knew._

The single most horrifying of his fears had manifested and been affirmed.

_Persephone __**knew.**_

He couldn't have anyone that KNEW.

_His plans…his plans-!_

He couldn't have anyone as powerful as her _KNOW_, anyone of her KIND—

Tom's lip curled in disgust.

_This was why the beasts had to be culled!_

With a vindictive snarl, his wand arm lashed out, the incantation leaving him in a furious yell. _**"CRUCIO!"**_

The blast of red light hit her chest with jarring ferocity, dropping Hermione to her knees almost instantaneously. She could feel the force of his magic ripping its way across her skin, through her nerve endings, weaving into every piece of her to try and ignite every terrible sensation she'd ever experienced in her lifetime through her physical body and soul. Hermione felt the anger behind his attack though it lacked the voracious fervor of the sort she'd been subjected to for the better part of a decade. In comparison to that of the blazing inferno of Bellatrix Lestrange's hatred that had fueled each and every one of those curses, Tom's felt like a warm river flowing over her body from the roots of her hair to the tips of her toes.

Somehow, she had not expected this curse.

She knew to egg him on, she knew to incite him and shatter his composure, yet somehow, Hermione had expected something different to be sent her way. She'd wholly expected him to lash out with something, _anything_ else short of his older self's signature _avada_ with the way his wand's allegiance lay. He wouldn't risk a killing curse rebounding on him due to a fickle piece of wood but, considering his sizable repertoire, he could have chosen practically _any_ other torturous spells. The fact that he'd chosen _this_ one, however, meant it had been intentional.

In the small space in her mind reserved for her sanity when this too familiar spell would come to call, a single, solitary thought kept rolling through her head.

_Not this one…_

She'd fallen before him, but it wasn't enough. Tom watched her face contort in pain, he watched her teeth grit and a foaming spittle gathering at the edges of her mouth as she resisted falling to her hands. She'd laughed at him before, by the lake; she wouldn't laugh at him now.

Now…well, _now_ she was done with the games.

_NOT this one…_

Her body convulsed, shoulders shaking uncontrollably and blood leaking from her mouth where she'd bitten either her lip or her tongue. Tom pressed his anger further into his spell and watched. He watched and watched and _watched_, waiting for her to bow to him fully and submit herself in a horrific scream where he knew all filthy, dirty, Mudbloods belonged.

_**NOT—THIS—ONE—**_

"_**BOMBARDA MAXIMA!" **_Hermione roared, her wand arm jerkily coming up and blasting Tom from his footing and clear across the classroom to crash bodily into the far wall. With him came a shower of rocks and wood splinters from the ripped flooring and desks taken in the wake of the spell.

The breath was knocked completely from his lungs and Tom struggled to right himself, stars still bursting in his vision when he pulled his head up to look at the woman who was stumbling in a twitchy, convulsive step towards him.

Her hair was ratted, frizzed, and fallen forward, half shielding her face. What he could see from beneath the wild auburn curls was Persephone's usually placid or sarcastic visage turned in a monstrous snarl. Her teeth were bared and bloody, further trickles of red smearing her face and neck. And her eyes…her eyes were alight with a red-orange fire that rivaled that of the hearth in the Great Hall at the peak of winter. The magic he'd always seen swirling darkly in them had ignited something else – something terrifying – that had been buried within them.

And all at once, Tom remembered that it was not a schoolgirl he had been dealing with all this time, but a woman that, by the sound of her few tales told, had clawed her way to the surface of the pit of a world so terrible that she would ravage time to recreate it.

All at once, a world shattering dread set into his very mortal bones.

"I f-ffear f-for you, _Tom Riddle._" Beyond her stuttered words, her voice was low and sultry and full of deadly venom. "F-for mu-my Mistress hated me _f-far_ more than you."

His mouth was dry and he opened it in an attempt to speak, attempting to halt her next actions perhaps, though he never had a chance before he was slammed into the wall once more before being dropped back to the stone tile.

"It's imp-p-olite...to bb-b..reak your word t-to a lady, T-tt-om…"

He grunted, pulling himself up again to his hands and knees but was stunted by dozens of tiny forks of lightning arcing between him and the floor and the wall nearby, wrenching stuttered, stammered sounds of pain from his throat. She released him from the curse and let him slump down once more, her wobbly legs coming into the edges of his vision.

"We'd..._agreed_…b-befff-ore…any one…b-bb-b-ut…_**that**_ one."

Tom peeled his eyes open, body trembling from the currents of electricity still lingering and impeding and misfiring the signals from his brain to his muscles and back. He was lucid enough in those seconds to shift his gaze upward and see her staring into him with a glare like hot fired steel.

"And...anyway...you ha-have to _MEAN_ it," she hissed at his prone form. _**"CRUCIO!**_"

Where Tom's spell had flung a shot of red light into her chest, Hermione's exploded from her wand tip in a ferocious stream. The manifestation of her magic crackled through the air, cutting through the scant space between them so quickly that Tom's sluggishly raised wand arm did precisely _nothing_ to protect himself.

Her crucio plowed into him with so much force that Tom immediately bowed, his back coming clean off the classroom floor and his mouth dropping open to release a horrific, blood curdling howl of agony.

Tom's insides felt as if they were being shredded with rusted metal tools and set to flames. Each wave of her fury manifested itself in another searing tear and grind of joints as his spine arched and thrashed violently.

The stream of light continued to pulse fervently, the velocity of her spell sending the dust and debris trembling and bouncing along what remained of the stone that hadn't been carved apart in Hermione's wrath. She sneered, the lights to her eyes ablaze with the once carefully controlled piece of her older self now running free and livid, incited with the idea of his punishment. Her hand twisted, arcing the spell and _Tom_ farther off the ground in a way so masterfully deliberate, one could have only learned it in intimate study from someone who'd delighted in the 'art' of such a torturous spell.

Hermione's thoughts darkened further, no longer seeing and hearing the boy before her being pummeled by the viciousness of her curse, but instead returning to the woman who had stood over her in such a fashion every day for nearly ten years.

She recalled the day she'd been gifted to her evil Mistress by the adult version of this boy; she'd been a trophy from the war, _"Potter's Mudblood,"_ and Bella had been delighted to accept her as a new chew toy.

_Every day._

_Every night._

_For ten…bloody…years…_

A rabid growl passed her grit teeth when she saw Tom's hand twitching for his wand. His eyes had cracked open to slits and he was fighting the press of magic with all of his capacity, which served only to enrage her further. Hermione twisted her arm, dragging another horrific cry from his throat until it ran his voice ragged and it cracked and faded into a silent scream.

Her first memory of Bellatrix surfaced as well, sneaking free from the carefully locked box she'd kept secreted away so well until then.

She remembered the taunting, tittering madness of her would be Mistress spitting and breathing in her ear.

She recalled that foul, rancid breath to match her rotted teeth from her years in the great island prison.

Most of all, Hermione intimately remembered the feeling of every single curve and angle in the letters Bellatrix's cursed blade had carved into her arm and the way the magic had stunned her to her core, etched something darker and much longer lasting than a flesh wound into her very being.

She remembered that and transferred it all into the push of her magic and into the boy, not yet turned Lord, thrashing at her feet.

Tom could hear the grinding of his teeth in his head. He could hear his vertebrae rubbing together, ligaments stretching and popping throughout his body with sickening sounds as he writhed and scrabbled through wave after wave of this woman's fury to get a handhold on anything. She poured every ounce of hatred into her curse and he could barely think past the beating waves of her magic and the excruciating pain of his insides being broken, shredded, ignited in the worst pain he'd ever wished on any of the minions he'd put through the very same. Tom struggled to breathe, his screams having lost sound, lacking the oxygen to fuel them any longer.

_This is how I will die,_ he thought with a certain frightening lucidity.

In an act of desperation, Tom struggled in one last push of stubbornness and attempted to shutter away his sensations in the same sort of way he protected his mind from prying leglimens like the old coot Dumbledore. He tore them apart, locked them in separate recesses of his mind, compartmentalized his pain and fear and dread as well as everything in between until he could focus enough to break through the horrific crashes of Persephone's power trying to peel him apart at the seams. His hand twitched again towards the wand knocked aside during his thrashing and he lifted it, pointed weakly at the witch resembling a Fury of legend, hair wild and whipping behind the flood of his punishment.

Tom wheezed a single word hopelessly, _**"Repulso!"**_

And Hermione was flung backwards from his panicked cast. Air flooded back into his lungs, pressure and pain lifting off and away from him instantly; it was as if he'd just been saved from drowning in that fateful moment.

Tom, however, took no time to celebrate this time. He stuttered the quickest mending spells he knew to help him to his feet once more and escape the very serious threat of this witch, this woman who was every bit as much the goddess of the underworld as her name suggested.

Hermione was gathering herself, pushing to her hands and knees and shaking her head something like a dog shaking out its fur. If Tom had not been in such a fearful hurry to tear down all the wards and flee from the room, he might have seen the light fade from her eyes and the darkness swirl back into its place as her brow furrowed and she attempted to place precisely where she was.

"Tom," she croaked out confusedly as the classroom door was wrenched open and successively slammed shut.

**. . . . .**

Tom staggered down the hall, his body still convulsing and shuddering intermittently despite the spells he'd cast on himself to boost his adrenaline. His thoughts were still disjointed and fuzzy and his equilibrium utterly wrecked. It was fortunate for Tom that his "discussion" with Persephone had taken much longer than he'd anticipated and the halls were mostly abandoned by the students preparing for Monday classes, otherwise he might have had explanations to concoct about why he stumbled drunkenly into the girl's lavatory.

He slumped against the nearest sink upon his entry and while he managed to steady his body, his vision swam and spun and Tom nearly heaved what remained in his stomach from the day onto the tile. Gripping the edge of the basin, Tom reached a shaky hand out to turn on the tap and splash several handfuls of cold water onto his face, trying to calm his racing mind enough until he was stabilized on his feet. Chancing a glance at his bloodshot, sweat drenched, and pallid reflection, Tom grunted and forced himself to stumble to the broken sink.

_She's coming. She's coming—she's coming—she's coming—she'll be here soon—any second—_

Tom tripped over his own feet and fell to his hands and knees before the secret opening, hissing the hurried command for passage to open. He was still attempting to chase away the aftereffects of Persephone's curse when the grinding stopped and he yelled down the tunnel, a command in perfect Parseltongue, to summon the basilisk with haste.

He didn't hear the stall open behind him at all the sudden racket.

He didn't hear the gasp of the sniffling girl over the rumble of the basilisk emerging from its hole.

He _did_ hear the girl's scream, however, the moment the creature appeared and its gleaming yellow eyes locked stares with her own.

Tom whirled around in time to see the girl, a Ravenclaw – _Persephone's little friend _– stiffen as all of her organs petrified and her eyes glossed over before her corpse fell to the ground, head cracking the tile with a sickening sound.

"_FUCK!"_ The uncharacteristic curse fell from his lips as the shock of the accidental death struck him. With another frantic wave of an arm and hissed command, he sent the creature away, earning him a disgruntled noise from the beast though it obeyed instantly.

Eyes still on Myrtle's cooling body, Tom's aching head tried to wrap itself around what else precisely he would have to do to clean up this mess. It was during his fourth or fifth mentally proposed plot that he'd evidently missed the sound of the arrival of the very woman he'd been trying to target.

"Oh _Tom,_" Persephone called from the doorway with a serious look fixed on the dead Myrtle. "Just _look_ at what you've done."

"YOU," he growled, pointing his wand at her shakily, and using the broken sink to stand on wobbly knees. He looked around and lowered his voice with the next. "You _planned_ this!"

She examined the corpse a moment longer before turning her gaze onto him. "Of course I did," she said blandly, "And you may speak normally, I silenced the room as soon as I arrived after you so no one would hear her scream." At Tom's look, she shrugged. "I've come to you from the _future_, I've planned quite a few things." Hermione frowned then and shook her head. "Though that, back there, I did not mean to lose control…for that I apologize. My tactics triggered a bit of a different reaction than I had anticipated. It was not my intention to harm you like that…"

Tom sneered, finding more solid footing and confidence in his ire. "Apology _**not**_-accepted. You were aiming to _kill_ me!"

Hermione looked affronted and nodded to both the Chamber entrance and the girl on the tile. "As were you. _And_ you broke your word to me," she added the last in the tone that had taken her at the height of her fury.

Tom shivered but retorted, "I promised nothing."

"You promised to protect me," she hummed, playful again. "You botched that one up rather spectacularly in all actuality." Hermione offered him another shrug and a deviant smile. "I should say, if nothing else, that marks us even."

Tom didn't reply, but his silence was telling. Wholly unsure if he could manage any other spells with the tremors that continued to run intermittently through his body, he grit out tiredly, "Would plain conversation have been too easy for you? If I grow to be what you've only hinted at so far, I imagine you know that I would not hesitate to maim and kill for what I want. Why the dramatics?"

"You're fond of dramatics," her words came out more fondly than either of them expected, and it had a strange tone to it that struck a harmonizing chord within them both. The pair shared an odd look with one another, seeing, but not seeing for what seemed forever but was only a second – two at best.

Hermione cleared her throat, shattering the moment. "I was once told that certain events in time would happen, regardless of the paths taken to arrive there. Those paths have a finite length that can be traveled." She paused, looking between him, the girl, the entrance to the lavatories, and back before beginning to close the distance. He tensed with her first few steps, but never struck. Once she was within arm's reach, his wand arm drooped; she resisted the pull of his presence and his magic and kept her hands close to her own sides. "If I'm to lay a new road before me, I must be thrifty in the ones I alter…best to keep as much as close to their original events as possible."

Tom, with significant hesitation, let his arm drop the rest of the way to his side. "And I take it…_this_ was something you deemed unimportant to change?"

Hermione shook her head, padding closer with a stride that was much less jittery than her immediate suffering from the curse. The way she held herself was also curious, her posture restored to rights and the look she wore on her face much more…_sane._

"On the contrary, it is very important. It has also been changed significantly by my presence here…but I needed to assure you understood…"

"Understood _what_?" Tom asked petulantly, finally recovered enough to stand straight though he dared not wander far from his crutch just yet.

"How to create this," she said simply and retrieved the plain looking black book from the back of her waistband to hold between them.

Tom's eyes widened at the sight of it and he began patting the insides of his robes immediately. Persephone chuckled.

"_Obviously_, it's not there. It fell out when you were…compromised." The word made Tom glower but she closed the rest of the distance, surprised when he didn't draw on her once more, and extended it between them. "I didn't read it," she added with a huff when he hesitated, "that would have been rude."

"As rude as forcing me to try to bite off my own tongue as an aftereffect of my torture?" He snapped.

"As rude as continuing to _test-my-patience,_" Hermione hissed at him. "I've come to you from the future and the other side of your war, Tom Riddle. I was a very dangerous girl then…I am a very dangerous _woman_ now_._ I could rend your body and soul for my amusement in this very lavatory and make your greatest fears come true in this instant, but I want you alive. I want you to continue this plight of yours, just with some _'variations.'"_

Tom swallowed thickly and did well to not tremble at the reemergence of the darkness in her tone and the tiniest blink of light flickering through her irises. He would not, _could_ not show any more weakness in front of this monster of a witch standing before him. "You would have me save your precious Mudbloods?" He sneered. "Have me create a _'better world'_ for the filthy beasts?"

Tom reached for his diary to snatch from her and cover how unsettled he was by the shift in her presence from the addled, brilliant Ravenclaw girl to this cunning, clever, and _frightening_ witch. When he tried to tug it free, he found she was still hanging on to the spine, bidding for his attention.

Hermione smiled and it was a cruel thing. "I will show you to your throne, Tom. All I need is for you to agree to keep me by your side, as your equal." She nearly laughed at the disdainful look he was fighting to keep off his features at the concept. "You need not romance me, _love._ But take this book now, accept this condition, and I will show you immortality."

Tom's expression turned from one of thinly veiled disgust to that of barely concealed intrigue and excitement. His eyes flicked to the diary they both held and back to her face. "You mean…"

"A horcrux," Hermione said coolly. She nodded to Myrtle's body. "Waste not, want not. I will help you create it and you will have me at your side, listening to my counsel, and we shall _take_ that seat over the world that you crave. We must hurry, Tom…the clock is ticking."

Tom swallowed and stared hard at the dead girl, his hand still clamping tightly onto the end of his diary. Her glazed over eyes stared vacantly off to the distance, her body stiff and contorted in an awful and unnatural way from how she fell. The dull, lifeless pigtails she always wore her hair in remained just as dull and lifeless with an addition of unruly with how they spread over her shoulders and the floor. Her chest was still, never to take breath again. Her pupils were fixed, never to see again. Her mouth was still open in a silent scream, never to speak again…

Tom reimagined the corpse as his own and could feel the color drain from his skin.

Instantly, he snapped his gaze back to Persephone decision made, and tugged on the diary harshly once more, this time snatching it clean from her grip. "Done!"

Hermione smirked. "No conditions?"

"With all due respect, Miss Callaghan," Tom began snidely, "I do believe you when you tell me you could have killed me before and, as you aptly stated, 'the clock is ticking.' If my price for immortality is to spend it with a Mud—_Muggle-born_ at my side…it is a small price to pay."

Hermione sensed something else floating on his tongue and arched a fine brow. "And?"

With that, something resembling Tom's old smirk resurfaced. "And, if we are being truthful, I find myself intrigued at how you would think to still my hand from destroying you for all of eternity."

She tossed her head back and laughed at that and it was an _all-too-sane _flavor laced with seductive darkness. When she looked to him again, that light had returned and she delighted in the way he shrank from it on reflex. "It's easy, Tom, because…you see…of the two of us who shall live forever, _**I**_ am the only one that also knows how to…_undo_ that eternity."

Tom's previously haughty look was nowhere to be found in the face of the magnitude of the agreement they had just settled upon.

**. . . . .**

Hermione led them back to the classroom they had used earlier, finding it still in the state of disarray they'd both left it. She locked and warded the room behind them. They took spots near each other, though not _too _close, in the center of the room, looking at each other-one with interest, the other with weariness.

"Have you read the book? The one I left you," Hermione asked without further preamble.

"Of course I have," Tom said.

"So then you know the steps."

"Yes," he said with some irritation.

"Excellent," she said, "Before we begin, I will further explain—"

"Like I said, I've read the book," Tom said impatiently. "I do not need a regurgitation of the text, Miss Callaghan."

Hermione's eyes narrowed dangerously and she gave him a smile that was simply all teeth. "I understand that, _Mister Riddle,_ but of the two of us, which has successfully created a horcrux and which has successfully accomplished being a pain in my arse?"

"Why you—"

She lifted her wand the moment he stuttered a step forward, her wrist twisting threateningly. "I understand you are eager, Tom, however the reality of the process is much more…"

"Complex?" Tom offered acerbically.

"Excruciating," Hermione corrected. "If you will but listen to me and the things I have to tell you, you will succeed with much less toil than you had the first time around."

"And what is that supposed to mean?" He asked tartly.

"_That_ detail is irrelevant for the time being," she said breezily. "Let us focus on the task at hand, shall we?"

"Fine," he grit out with no small amount of agitation. "'Explain further' if you would, Miss Callaghan."

Hermione smirked at his insolence but let that one go. "The steps are simple, Tom, but the execution is much more difficult than one might presume from reading the text, and once you begin, I shall be unable to help you." She stepped towards him cautiously and, to his credit, he did not flinch away. "Your murderous intent and subsequent killing of the girl has splintered your soul. …do you feel it? Can you tell? Is it…wriggling around inside your chest-" Hermione raised her hand and brushed her knuckles across a pair of his ribs gently, tilting her head curiously when he shuddered. "-right about here?"

Tom felt the tingling pieces of her energy brushing across his chest and rattling a piece of him that did, indeed, feel loose and sharded away from the rest of him. "Yes," he said breathily, _"yes."_

Hermione nodded. "You have disrupted the natural order of things. People are born, people live, people die, but only when they are meant to. Or at least that is how it is meant to be. Once you have taken the life of another, and out of its proper cycle, you must pay for that disruption. It is nature's way.

"Your soul fragments, it breaks, it _shatters_ as punishment. The more lives you take, the more fragmented your soul will become and the more dangerous all of those shards of your humanity will be to your very being. One, five, a dozen, hundreds, hundreds of thousands of individual razor edges just trying to pierce you, trying to rip you apart from the inside. The pain of a splintered soul has the potential to drive one mad, Tom. It usually does."

He blew out a breath, wanting to put a sneer upon his face but was having the greatest difficulty with the way her magic soothed and stroked over that splinter of his soul. It felt like a massage to a knotted muscle, painful, terrible, and extraordinarily wonderful all at once.

"But," she said quietly, pulling him from his daze, "as I always say, waste not, want not." Hermione removed her hand from his chest and placed it over his right, pressing him to tighten his grip on his wand. His eyes came open from their lidded state and he watched her with skeptical caution. She offered him a small smile and guided his wand tip to his own chest. "You'll need to dig it out, Tom. Will it to the surface, up, then out…and then into this." She placed her other hand on his diary. "Your soul fragment will make this object nigh indestructible and if blows were to come to your physical body, even in so much as it being destroyed, it would protect you from crossing over."

Hermione rubbed her thumbs over his skin where they touched and smiled at the fact that he didn't tug away from her 'filthy Mudblood' touch, as he would say. It emboldened her to even lean in, noses almost touching as they had in so many nearly intimate moments in the library, and she purred her reassurance through a low, sultry voice. "It will hurt…it will hurt nearly as much as the force of my curse upon you before…but I can guarantee you that afterward…afterward it will be glorious."

Tom was taken by her words, not just the expected intelligence behind her explanation, but the passion in which she expressed herself. Despite their rows, their _duels,_ Tom found the slightest hint of relief in the knowledge that he would be tasked with keeping her after all…and that destroying her, while he was not certain was truly, completely off the menu, was dropped down many rungs on his list of priorities. The first step was to come into his immortality, he could worry about the details of skiving off his portion of the agreement after the fact.

He chanced one last look into Persephone's eyes, the light behind them now eager, encouraging-_alluring-_and he swallowed past any nerves of the coming pain. With a sharply hissed incantation, he summoned the piece of his soul from the depths of his being.

And he screamed.

**. . . . .**

_Persephone had not lied to him, at least, not about the pain._

_The feeling of his soul, even just the tiniest piece of it, being wrenched from its home was __**beyond **__excruciating._

_He couldn't think._

_He couldn't see._

_He could barely stand, much less hold his wand in place and concentrate enough to perform the spell._

_The horrific feeling of a piece of himself being broken off and ripped away through a sea of muscle and tissue, blood and guts…like a piece of eggshell being scoured off all the hangers-on until it was clean and free of the membrane…it was precisely as bad as she had hinted at – possibly more so._

_Through his haze of pain, he felt pinpricks of pressure on his hands – her nails biting into the backs of them. _

_He was on his knees from the effort and agony and he could hear her voice somewhere close, yet still muffled, near his ear._

"_You have it, Tom, now RIP it out!"_

_He screamed in response and felt her grip tighten more. He couldn't be sure, but he vaguely recalled her settling his diary more firmly in his hand and positioning it more readily between them._

"_Shutter the pain! Shutter it away! You've got it, Tom, just here—" She rapped the book in his hand with her knuckles and the vibration of it startled him to refocus once more through his haze. "—__**here**__, Tom, DO-IT-__**NOW!**__"_

_With another brutal, horrific push past the pain firing in all of his __**everything**__, Tom ripped his wand away from his chest, knocking the witch down and away in the process. He growled savagely as he thrust the piece of him into his diary and the world jerked and spun in his eyes but he pushed and pushed and __**PUSHED**__ until he'd seated his soul within the book._

**. . . . .**

Hermione fell back with a start and a soft grunt when she hit the stone floor. For the second time that evening, she shook out the fuzzy feelings in her head and cast a glance in the direction of the wizard only a metre or so away, kneeling, sweating, _panting_ with his wand in one hand and his diary in the other. The air between them was quiet save for only the puffs and pants of his labored breathing and even those she allowed to linger for a long moment before she finally spoke.

"_Tom?" _His head snapped up at the sound of his name and the vision that greeted her was that of those dark, expressive eyes of his glossed in the deep shade of blood. He sneered at the sight of her, splayed on the floor as she was, and she felt her lips curling in a cheeky smile. "Congratulations."

With a snarl befitting the animalistic visage he sported then, Tom dropped both wand and diary and reached a hand to Persephone's ankle, hauling her from her spot to him in one deft movement.

Hermione loosed a startled squeak of surprise, but it was swiftly swallowed up by Tom Riddle's mouth slanting over hers and _devouring_ the noise. The scent of ozone and black magic, the _heat_ of it and his dark spell, rolled off of him in waves and doused all of her senses with its thrall. A moan rumbled free from her chest and her legs and arms came to loop around him, anchoring him to her in a wanton way.

He pulled his mouth from her only long enough to huskily mutter the word _"glorious"_ against her lips and moved to fasten them to her neck instead. He bit and sucked and teethed the flesh there violently, leaving it well on its way to leaving a magnificent bluish purple blemish. He was rock hard and ready to ravage the insufferable, swotty, mouthy, _brilliant_, and bloody tantalizing dark witch; her blood status being the furthest thing from his mind in those moments. His hands slid over her thighs, savoring the smooth skin all along the way as he dragged his fingers up, painting a path of gooseflesh, before tracing all over the edges of her knickers. If he had not still been swimming through the carnal haze of dark magic swirling in his system he might have been capable of _anything_ other than fucking all the Ravenclaw smarts out of the woman and her damnable soft hands.

But he was, so he wasn't.

He growled when she grabbed up a handful of his hair to use to jerk her to him. Tom fused his lips to hers again and swallowed down more of her desperate noises, pulling away only when he needed air and even then, reluctantly. "Does it always feel like this?" He rasped, _mostly_ coherently, if not frenzied. "If there were more…after? For the others too? It would feel like this?"

Hermione's head dropped back with a moan when his pelvis ground against the damp cloth of her knickers. She gasped. "Better. _Better - _every time is better than the last. Less pain, _**BETTER.**_"

He thought of more, of the others he wanted to create, how many. The first had been horrible and disorienting but he needed six more. Only then would he have a perfect, magical number of them. This witch seemed to know exactly how to create so many. This deceptive and dangerous creature seemed to know _very much_ about the subject indeed. He wanted that knowledge, that firsthand experience. He wanted her to show him again how to cultivate these fractured pieces of his soul and create _more._

For Merlin's sake, he wanted _her_.

"I'll have you screaming." Tom snarled and buried his face in her hair, inhaling her unique scent and continuing the smooth, circular motions of his hips, the soaking wet cotton covering her swollen flesh dampening the front of his trousers now too.

It wasn't until she felt his fingers sneak _beneath_ the edge of the fabric that some of her sanity returned and she shoved him by the shoulders far enough away to look into his face. His pupils were blown wide in a sea of red, mouth open and panting, lips swollen from his fevered kisses and from trailing all along her flesh to make her gasp and moan.

"Persephone." It was a growl. That was the only word that could truly describe the sound that'd come out of Tom's mouth. Feral, gruff, ragged, and most definitely a _growl._

The crackling of his magic made the noise that much more intense and made her shiver with want in the darkest of ways. He bent towards her again, but her fingers curled into his lapels and she locked her elbows to keep him an arm's length away. "Tom," she gasped in an embarrassingly breathless sort of way. "No—_stop_."

"_No?"_ He was angry, that was for certain, but he stopped immediately.

_He would always stop._

The press of his power with his anger made it even harder to suppress the desire to have those wicked tendrils of magic wrapping around her, cocooning her, keeping her warm and safe and _thoroughly_ pleasured as he rocked inside of her.

_He would always stop…but…_

_She couldn't do it._

_She still wasn't ready._

_She couldn't— _

"You're too young for this," Hermione blurted lamely. It sounded awkward and so oddly out of place, even to her ears.

It was so absurd that he had to laugh, a low, entirely humourless laugh. "Too _YOUNG?_" he asked incredulously, the need for elaboration an unspoken demand.

She remained pressed to the stone, the magic remnants still pouring off of him like the heat from a roaring bonfire. It kept her in a hazy enough state that she couldn't vividly recall and compare his presence between her legs to the memories of her dead master, but that heat was fading. She'd been through this afterburn, she'd acclimated to her own, she would come out of it any moment and when she did…

His hips shifted against her in an unintentional brush and Hermione moaned, barely resisting shutting all logic and reason into a box to leave her with only her carnal instincts.

Warring whispers in her skull were filling her ears.

…_ready…_

…_shou…ve… killed him…_

…_disgusting…_

…_ma..ke…pay..._

…_you…re ready…_

They voices grew so loud and cacophonous, she could hardly focus.

It was as though she were simply stranded in the midst of tumultuous seas and all she could hear was the endless crashing of waves against the rocks.

Hermione struggled against the discord in her head and the memories that had finally resurfaced of her wicked Master.

Tom must have seen something in her flitting expressions because his weight upon her lifted slightly and he smoothed a sweat dampened hand over her wild hair, pushing it back and away from her face. It was the first serene touch he'd granted her since they'd parted ways the night before her faked attack.

"What are you—?"

"Let me in," he purred soothingly, insistently. Much of his anger had bled out of him in those moments, crimson eyes peeking up beneath dark lashes and his nose brushing over the tip of hers before his forehead came to press lightly against her own.

Hermione's chest, having been rising and falling like that of a small bird, calmed at the telltale nudging of his presence; his signature power wrapped in more sweet, sweet warmth caressed her as she'd become used to in the privacy of their secret nook. It peeked around the edges of her mental walls and he gently, _so gently,_ tried to sift through the wards she always had shoved into place. At first, Hermione hesitated to allow him entry, but he persisted, nudging, stroking, tickling sweetly along her boundaries and asking so nicely if she would let him play.

"_Persephone."_ Her name was whispered and sweet against her lips. It was full of promise and heat and wickedness that made her thighs clench and her breath leave her in a long exhale.

Hermione had somehow failed to notice when he'd coaxed her hands away from him and up on either side of her head. Once she _did_ notice, however, she tensed again at the traumatic press of Rodolphus' legacy trying to take her.

Feeling her breath huffing in anxiousness across his skin, Tom shushed her with soft coos of reassurance entirely unbefitting of his coarse demeanor seconds ago. He released her wrists to, instead, weave his fingers between hers, clasping their hands as gently as the rest of his ministrations and he stroked his thumb in circles over her fluttering pulse.

His voice soothed her, smoothed those hackles until she was less on the verge of explosion like their first near intimate encounter.

"_Let me in,"_ he said again.

This time, with his lips pressing kisses to her temple, she did.

**. . .**

_It was a wholly different experience than his last entry._

_Tom was not swept away in the flood of memories, but he found himself in a very pleasant interpretation of the maze that was her mind._

_He padded around for a moment, dragging his fingers along the neatly lain walls of brick that extended from floor to sky, yet somehow didn't seem nearly as restrictive as it should have. It was such a stark difference between his first ride to this one._

"_Show me."_

"_Show you what?"_

_Tom turned sharply and the image of her young self was there, looking at him curiously within this high walled maze that the sun still somehow managed to shine into._

"_You." At her upturned brow, he added, "The 'you' that is too old for me."_

_The vision of Persephone smirked and as the image of her fizzled into nothing, so did the world around them._

_Tom turned in place as he was ripped from the one serene spot of nowhere and thrust into a murky, rainy scene, one that had certain familiarity to it. He spotted two women, one lording over the other with a large jagged rock in hand, poised for a brutal blow, the world spun and reformed again. He was in an odd spot now, existing in a room where the one woman, the chestnut haired one, now stood, looking at her reflection in a dressing mirror on the wall, blotting away muck and grime from her face and cheeks with hands that were drenched in dark blood that spanned down to her elbows._

_He couldn't see himself in the glass but could see the body of the dead woman dumped on the mattress behind the other. Her skull was a crushed mess with bits of blood and other messes leaking out of the thing that used to be her head._

_Tom came up behind the woman cleaning herself and reached out to touch her, surprised when his fingers didn't pass through the image. "This is you," he said with certainty._

"_Yes," Hermione's older image said to the nonexistent boy in the mirror._

_He noted her voice was strained and ragged in this vision, as if she'd been screaming for days on end without stop, and stared at her reflection. Pressing against her back, he wrapped his arms around her body, watching her lids flutter and her body sway into his invisible presence behind her. "You are beautiful," Tom murmured hotly, entranced by the image of her swathed in her enemy's blood and guts._

_Hermione felt the press of lips against her skin and the swottiest part of her understood that he was rooting around in her head and dredging up her sensory memories so she could feel everything he was doing in this imagined space of theirs. She found, however, that she only cared that those imagined lips were now so very real, tugging and nipping and kissing, feeling anything BUT bad._

"_Tom," she moaned raggedly._

"_How do I look in this time, Persephone? How should I look when I take you here? When I'm NOT 'too young'…show me that."_

_Her eyes came open at his questions and she laughed the mad laugh that sometimes escaped her unknowingly. "Oh…Tom…I am certain that is something you DON'T wish to see."_

_His head came away from her shoulder, something resembling concern contorting his features – those of which, he noted, he could now also see in this mirror she gazed into. He didn't have to speak his question._

"_You become a monster, Mister Riddle. More monster than man."_

_His lip turned up in a sneer and his wandering hands paused in their path over her chest and stomach. "Show me," he demanded._

"_Show you? Here? Like this?" She nodded towards his hands in amusement._

"_SHOW ME."_

_Hermione chuckled and shook her head, wet, matted curls flinging droplets of water off with the move. When she stopped and focused again on her mirror it was no longer the handsome young Riddle's palm cupping her breast, but pale, spindly fingers, each capped with talon-like nails belonging to the one and only Dark Lord as she had seen him last. She was admiring her work in the looking glass and purred teasingly, "You'll have to excuse me, I've never had 'Lord Voldemort' touch me quite like THIS before."_

_The reflection of the bald, snakelike man towering over her petite figure in dark, wispy robes gasped and his lipless mouth drew away from a series of pointed teeth. His eyes shone with a glossy blood red tint, set within a pointed, sallow face. His already sharp cheekbones were made harsher by the deep hollows of his cheeks, so narrow and gaunt that it appeared only the thinnest layer of skin covered the stretch of muscle and tendon there. His hands came off her body and he gaped at them in front of his face, finding the reflection was as real as anything else in her mind. _

"_What is THIS?" Tom hissed and whirled her around, pressing her against the mounted mirror, hands gripping her shoulders in a bruising hold._

_Hermione's back hit the glass with a thud, knocking a breath from her with the move. Her eyes narrowed dangerously at the threatening weight of his hands on her and their scene swirled away again, the world going black. _

_Tom felt the stone at his back before his vision cleared and he found himself – his older, more hideous self – flush against a wall within a decadent and well-furnished sitting room. When he tried to move forward, he felt the pressure from Hermione's magic relentlessly pressing back, much as it had during their first scuffle._

_Hermione stepped to him, a breath away from that snakelike face, helpless and pinned, and she raised a hand curiously to his face. It was a novel thing, having the Dark Lord restrained within one's mind. Her fingertips traced along his serpentine features, brushing along his ridged brow and all of his sharp angles, lingering at the half-formed cartilage that should have been his nose. She shivered at his familiar flutter of magic, riled by his anger, and murmured distractedly, "You've asked me to show you your more…age suitable self. Unfortunately, you made some questionable decisions on your previous paths and this is all I have to show."_

_Tom wanted to snarl at her taunting but her fingertips blazed burning paths across his skin, those searching digits playing in the power veritably seeping from his pores felt heavenly. He remembered vividly then, too, the exciting caress of her energy as she'd toyed with him like this before, played him for the fool and took him for a ride. The more recent lash of her magic crossed his thoughts as well. She could have crushed him. She could have destroyed him. She'd had him very clearly and precisely where she wanted and she could have done nearly anything… _

_She was a dangerous witch – Mudblood or no - and in remembering this, he remembered exactly why he'd started courting her attentions in the first place._

"_Persephone—" _

_It was a low, rugged growl in the tone of the Dark Lord that Hermione knew from her time. Hermione shivered at the sound, the familiar timbre causing sensations she had never dreamt to want associated with the creature beneath her palm rushing to the surface. She recalled how she and Tom had gotten tangled in her mind the once before, how she'd forced him into her memories of her former Master to keep him from wandering elsewhere, and how he'd been swept away in climax at the stimulation._

_She craved it in that moment, craved that it be him instead._

_Tom would stop, he would always stop when she said, even like this - __**ALWAYS.**_

_Her eyes clenched shut and she licked her lips, trying to push them there once more with the intent to usurp the memories and make it theirs, but the space didn't shudder or move. Hermione's brow furrowed in concentration and she pushed and pushed and __**pushed **__but still found no success._

"…_let me…"_

_Hermione gasped at the hot breath on her ear, her eyes snapping open in confusion, trying to find how he had gotten so close. She felt more of him, hot and hard against her bare skin, pressed to her inner thigh, and she shook a dizzying number of sudden starbursts from her vision but whatever she'd meant to say came out only in a moan. _

"_Tom," she breathed hotly._

_His hands were on her breasts, her legs, tangled in her hair to tilt her head aside. _

_His teeth were on her neck, biting and tugging and bruising then on her ear, her jaw, worrying at her lips and stealing her moans and whimpers._

_One of her hands dragged up his naked back, the other clawed its way up his head. She barely registered that she should have thought to feel a thick mess of wavy hair there but easily imagined the smooth, startlingly warm, skin instead._

"_Tom—" Hermione moaned out his name again and felt him rub along her thigh. His teeth raked over her skin, tearing the smallest lines in the topmost layer with his jagged teeth and pulling a desperate keening sound from her throat. Her fingers dug into the silky bedsheets beneath her – the question of how they'd gotten to this decadent bed in the first place stolen away by his strained groan._

"_My Queen…"_

_She dragged her lids open enough to see him, the picture of her younger Tom flickering through her vision before it was replaced with heated red eyes that weren't nearly as foreign as they should have been._

"…_lay the world at your feet…"_

_He was saying something but she could only catch pieces of it. _

"_...a goddess…"_

"_Tom," she whimpered frantically._

_The bed shifted as he tugged her legs to curl higher around his hips._

"_Persephone…" _

_His nails bit into her rear as his tip nudged her entrance._

_Her head fell back against the mattress. _

"_Now…please, please, Tom, __**now**__—"_

_With a snarl, he drove into her swift and hard, burying himself to the hilt in a single movement that filled her so completely it almost pained her._

_Hermione moaned out his name, her fingers curling into claws, digging into the skin of his flesh as her hips writhed of their own accord, trying to ease to the feel of him. His face burrowed more insistently against her neck and in her hair as she wriggled and clenched around his cock, incoherent babble tumbling from his mouth and his arms tightening around her in time with the squeeze of her muscles. _

_She whimpered, that ache of pain turning into one of slow building pressure that demanded it be tended to. "Move, I-I need you to move…"_

_Those devilish eyes of his came up to look upon her face, latching onto her now panting expression with a feral fascination. He was only in view long enough to groan and hiss something she couldn't quite understand before he went back to anchoring himself by taking the meat of her shoulder between his teeth. His hips withdrew in a long, languid stroke, a rumble of pleasure escaping him as he pulled nearly completely out and drove back in to bury himself to the hilt._

_A torrid sound she'd never thought to hear from herself echoed in the room within her mind. She found her hands scrabbling to touch him, any of him, __**all**__ of him as if it would paint him a clear picture of her pleasure and make him give her MORE, maybe even drag him along in her delight._

_He ground against her, his pale, narrow hips, rocking between her legs spreading tantalizing chills through her from head to toe. _

_With each hitch of her breath, whimper of his name, and bite of her nails, Tom groaned or growled or hissed something that spread a hot wash of arousal through her; she was positively soaking for him but even still he moved with shuddering breaths murmuring about how she was perfect, too tight, how he'd never last inside her._

_The sound of him __**excited**__ her. _

_It excited her in ways she should have felt ashamed of._

_After all she'd been through, she should have hated it, loathed every second of what was happening within her head…but she couldn't._

_He felt magnificent._

_He felt amazing._

_He felt perfect too…like a favorite memory you wanted to cherish forever for the days you needed something to keep you going._

_Her lashes fluttered when she felt his rhythm pick up._

_An arm looped around her waist and the other came up to smooth her curls from her face and Tom's mouth came away from her shoulder to press to her ear._

_His hissed words were melding, slurring together, but Hermione's chest clenched merely at their tone._

_Her mouth fell open when his strokes came faster, shallower, and her brow creased as if she could make out what he was saying if only she just listened a-little-__**harder**__. _

_His way with her was different than anything she'd ever experienced with Lestrange. _

_Where her Master had been abusive and greedy and wretched, taking her for no one's pleasure but his own, Tom searched for hers; he sought it out and diligently dragged it out of her._

_For every coo or moan that slipped her lips, his thrusts stuttered._

_For every dig of her fingers, he made one of those noises that made her so wet and absolutely __**mad**__ for him, then her throaty cries would spur him on again._

_Tom's hips pistoned eagerly, barely seating himself within her before drawing back out, delighting in-practically feeding off of the arch to her back and the way her legs climbed higher on his waist with each thrust. _

_Hermione ran her hands from his shoulders, down to the swell of his rear, and back up. Her torrid cries came on the end of hitched breaths and she wound her arms around his neck until she was holding him close with frantic need._

_He panted into her skin, murmuring his secretive nothings into her ear, angling himself to stroke and rub in those perfect sorts of ways, while redoubling his efforts to hear her cry his name again._

_She imagined what he could be saying._

_She fantasized what words could have him growling and hissing and mumbling so heatedly._

_But, most shamefully, she imagined that he was gasping and panting her name – her real name._

_And then she was gasping and panting his too._

**. . .**

Hermione arched off the floor, her fingers clamping down hard on the hands pressed to hers and her mouth dropped open as a strangled cry of pleasure ripped itself from her throat.

Her body shuddered through her climax. Her legs wrapped so tightly around the man above her, she nearly strangled him with their grip as though it could satisfy the pulsing ache still twitching through her.

Tom's face dripped with sweat, his hair clinging to the skin of his forehead and cheeks, and he breathed heavily into the crook of her neck and shoulder. They were both still fully clothed but Hermione's skin was dotted with bruises from his bites and suckles. They looked particularly nasty, though when he brushed his lips across them she shivered and turned her head in an invitation. Tom swallowed and tried to lift his weight from her petite body, but she just strengthened the hold around his hips and he hissed when his trousers rubbed along his sensitive, softening length. He made a different sort of face when he felt the sticky and wet evidence of their not-quite-coupling.

Groaning, he traced his lips up along her neck and jaw. Still caught in his post-orgasmic, dark magic haze, he rumbled unintelligible things between pressing soft kisses to the corner of her mouth. Hermione made groggy but pleasured noises in the back of her throat and turned her face back to his for a proper kiss as well.

Tom slumped above her until his forehead pressed to hers and with their hands still clasped, he sighed against her lips earning him a sleepy purr of contentment from the witch beneath him. "You shall be the death of me, Persephone Callaghan."

Hermione chuckled lazily and nipped at his mouth, dragging his bottom lip between her teeth then slumping back to the tile. Her legs dropped away from his hips at last and she yawned tiredly. _"Alas…I really shan't…"_

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**Another A/N: **Thanks for sticking with me, all. I know it's been a little while since the last update, hopefully this beast of a chapter helps fill the void. There is a tiny "book one" epilogue to come soon, either later today or tomorrow, and then what is likely another short hiatus in updates before "book two" starts. I am about to move myself across the country in about 4 weeks so I am preparing for this and will have even less time to write than I have in a while. I will work on the next chapters as I can, but between moving and the whole SAD kicking in because of the colder weather and lack of sun, it's been difficult for me to write anything. Again, thanks for continuing to follow and wait for updates, more soon-ish. :) If you get bored, I am also on Tumblr as dulce-de-leche-go.


	19. Chapter 18 - Severed (Book I Epilogue)

**18 - Severed**

June 1943 - End of Term 

"So…the plan…"

"The plan is the exact same as it was ten minutes ago when you went over it, Abraxas. And that one was the same as the one from ten minutes before that," Tom said curtly.

The blond grimaced and shrank back into the train cushions, going back to wadding up a poor, crumpled piece of parchment and alternating between squishing it more and tearing it into tiny, ratty pieces. "Apologies, my Lord," Abraxas mumbled, "I am just…the fact that the arrangement was actually approved to have you 'stay' at the manor this summer while you tend to your…errands…especially after the creature and Hagrid—"

Tom shot Abraxas a pointed look overtop his diary.

"I am just trying to assure that I do not fail you," Abraxas said hurriedly.

"You worry too much, Malfoy," Tom spoke dismissively. "The plan is perfect and ingenious and completely infallible. And as I said, you have recited it again and again to the tee; nothing will go wrong. You have it perfectly memorized."

Abraxas brightened at his master's words and was just a hair shy of positively _beaming_. "Thank you, my Lord."

Tom looked up again from the nondescript diary he was writing in and gave the other boy his warmest, smoothest smile. "Of course. I will always give credit where credit is due, my friend. You have done a wonderful job of getting everything prepared for me." Tom paused and made a coy show of a thought crossing his mind. He tapped his quill to his lips and asked, "Has the bank clearance also been provided yet, Abraxas? At Gringotts…to your portion of the Malfoy vaults?"

At that, Abraxas ducked his head. He could feel Tom's warm smile dissolving and turning into something else, something much less preferable bearing down on the top of his head. "A-ah…about that piece of it…"

Tom quirked a brow and questioned him, his expression light and curious but the hard, underlying tone to his voice like dangerous steel. "When I asked you earlier, you said that the rest of the portion of the plan had been completed, did you not?"

"Ah..I-I did…I had forgotten initially…my request was d-delayed—"

"_Forgotten_," said Tom, halting Abraxas beginnings of a stammer. "You recited my multi-stage plan no less than twenty times since we've boarded the train to London and yet had forgotten one of the most important pieces of the entire operation. Timing, Abraxas," Tom hissed, "_TIMING_ is imperative! Your delay for this request may very well affect the entire course of my task!"

Abraxas couldn't burrow far enough into his seat. His mouth opened and closed like a fish, incoherent noises stuttering out of it as he tried to come up with some sort of acceptable excuse and he almost screamed with relief as a sharp knock sounded on their compartment door. He expected his Lord to turn that irritated glare on whoever was waiting on the other side and was surprised when the crease to Tom's brow lessened and his head just tilted to the side in interest.

"Enter," Tom said, shutting his diary and setting it at his side with his quill.

Abraxas watched, mystified, as Tom rose just as the door slid open and Persephone Callaghan came into view from the other side. He scrambled to his feet before Tom had a chance to turn a dreadful look back in his direction. "Miss Callaghan," he greeted her as smoothly as he could muster.

"Malfoy," Hermione said with a warm smile to the handsome young man. She felt Tom's own head turn and was impressed that he'd managed to speak without the snarl she could hear growing in his chest.

"Leave us," Tom barked and Abraxas couldn't remove himself from their presence fast enough. He watched the esteemed young Malfoy clumsily gather his belongings and brush past them to exit. Tom wasted no time in waiting for Abraxas to properly clear the doorway before jerking his wand harshly at the compartment door to lock it, pull the shade, and silence the car.

Hermione observed him with amusement. "Your jealousy is adorable."

Tom responded by tangling a hand into her curls and tugging her head back, turning that smirking face of hers upwards, unfazed by the press of her wand that came with it, digging into his collarbone. "Malfoy is an idiot," he muttered and closed his fingers around her wand hand. "Lestrange would have been a better choice.

"No!" She snapped, pressing her wandpoint to his flesh insistently. "You must keep your dogs precisely where they are, Tom. Cultivating this…cultivating _Malfoy_ will serve you going forward. Lestrange will have his moment."

Tom's mouth twitched in a grimace. "Malfoy is less of a dog and more of a weasel_._ Given the opportunity, the sniveling idiot will turn tail and run once pressed. Lestrange would—_what_ are you smiling about?" His witch was suppressing a grin now that he couldn't dissect, and it both intrigued and irritated him.

Hermione chuckled softly and finally released the pressure of her wand to his chest, feeling his hand loosen in her hair as well. She allowed him to guide her wand arm up around his neck and hummed even as she felt him walking her backwards until her back hit the compartment door. "It's not important, not now, anyway."

He tucked his wand away and let his newly freed digits creep down the arm still at her side to clasp her hand. "I dislike this way of operations, Persephone," he murmured, head dipping closer to hers. "You should tell me _**all**_ that you know. _Why_ – of all things – must I visit my filthy Muggle father?"

"I tell you all that you need to know _when_ you need to know it, Tom. Lest you make rash decisions by knowing too much…" Hermione's lashes fluttered when his lips began a familiar path along her neck and jaw and ear; it made it much easier to ignore the venomous bite in his question. "You would have sought him out eventually on your own, I am just ensuring that you continue on this path."

Tom scoffed at that but let it slide in favour of the sweet noises she was making in response to the nips and tugs at her skin. He slid his free hand down her back, massaging her rear until she yelped and hiked a leg high up on his hip. "You're insufferable," he hissed.

Hermione felt him edging in around her mental walls, nudging at her barriers in askance and she licked her lips when she felt him roll his hips to hers. "We'll be at the station soon," she said breathlessly and already unsure of the foundation of her protest.

"Yes," Tom said simply.

Her nails bit into his nape. "We've not much time-"

"No," he agreed.

"We shouldn't—not again—"

"_No,"_ he said again, this time at her ear in a husky growl that dissolved into a murmured hiss.

Hermione shivered at the sound of the syllables slithering off his tongue. They were familiar, familiar even beyond the hazy rendezvous they'd fabricated in her mind. The sound of the foreign words made her thighs clench and she dropped her walls once more and lost herself to the feel of his magic weaving and writhing around in her mind.

The euphoric warmth felt like coming home.

**. . . . .**

Hermione stepped off the train, her worn leather bag hanging off of her shoulder and her book of faerie tales clutched to her breast. She felt him still, lingering in her mind and she barely resisted turning a searching gaze to the crowd. It proved to be substantially difficult, especially knowing he was only a single car down the line, exiting with Abraxas Malfoy to reunite with the boy's parents.

"_Poppy!"_

Jarred from her thoughts, Hermione's stare snapped forward from where it'd been unconsciously drifting and was greeted by the sight of an enthusiastic Ruth Swanson. She forced a smile to her face. "Aunt Ruthie!" she exclaimed in all falsified excitement.

The older witch closed the distance in a mere few steps, a box of fresh pastries hovering along behind her hurried footfalls. Her face bright and beaming, Ruth flung her arms around Hermione and crushed her in a fierce hug.

Hermione choked out a surprised noise and awkwardly returned her hug, even going so far as to pat a flexed palm of one hand stiffly to the center of her back.

"Oh! Oh, my little love!" Ruth gushed, "I've missed you. How was school? Did you enjoy your first year here?" The woman paused only to hold Hermione at arm's length and look her over from head to toe. "Have you been eating well? You seem different. _Uch_—nevermind!" Ruth chirped and tugged her back into her arms. "I've missed you," she said again, more softly now. "Are you ready to go home?"

Hermione blinked, jostled by the witch's emotions and questions all in such a scant space of minutes. Her gaze blurred and refocused again on the box of pastries bobbing merrily behind her fake aunt. Her thoughts drifted to her old end of terms when her parents would greet her with a small box of sweets - the _only_ time they would ever greet her with anything so ill for the teeth.

Something in her chest shuddered uncomfortably at the memory and her fingers dug into Ruth's robes.

Hermione felt a stinging in the backs of her eyes and she shut them tightly, finally returning the strength of Ruth's embrace. Burying her face in the other witch's hair, Hermione nodded and blinked back the moisture.

"Yes, Aunt Ruthie," she said so quietly she may as well have not been speaking. "I _would_ like to go home."

_**. . . .**_

_**End of Book I**_

_**. . . .**_

* * *

**A/N: **:) Thank you again to everybody supporting me and this fic! Again, more Persephone to come once I get all settled with moving and all that junk. I'll try to update my tiny fic like AA and ToT in the meantime but be sure to keep in touch with me on Tumblr! dulce-de-leche-go ! **  
**


	20. Chapter 19 - Ripples (Book II)

**A/N: **Just a friendly reminder that this story pulls from a mixture of book and movie details and takes certain liberties with reimagining canonical events. :)

* * *

**19 - Ripples**

August 1943 

Sunlight filtered in from Hermione's bedroom window at the Swanson estate. The warmth from the mid-morning sun made the expanse of skin caught in its rays tingle. When Hermione turned her head to look outside, she saw a surprisingly pleasant and clear day was awaiting her with twittering birds – _house sparrows maybe?_ – and a soft hum of buzzing insects to complete the perfect picture.

It was nice.

It was sweet.

It was a terrible shame that she could hardly feel it beyond the incessant, oppressive presence of the dark magic – _her_ dark magic – bleeding from the walls.

Hermione allowed her eyes to linger on the nice image of the rare textbook summer day a moment longer before shifting her gaze to the dull ceiling of her room. She stared at it, stared hard until the imperfections in the wood started to spin and whirl in her vision. She shut her eyes against the sight yet it only seemed to make matters worse. The images manifested behind her lids and a pulsing, pounding, thudding noise joined it in her ears. She could hear her own breathing, hear her heartbeat; she could hear the whispers and hisses slipping through her mind like a rancid brew, tainting everything it touched.

The voices spoke, raspy and thin, hissing things like '_vengeance'_ and '_power'_ and '_time.'_

They made no sense together and yet the heat and anger pouring from every syllable was tangible. The darkness roiling throughout the house, throughout the room, and throughout her mind, it had a flavor to it that managed to taste terrible and wonderful all at once. It sizzled on the back of her tongue and bled down her throat like a thick syrup until she was choking on it and, in an instant, she threw a hand out to her nightstand, palm slamming to the cover of her borrowed horcrux to seek refuge from the screaming in her head.

At once, the intricate spellwork her Elder self had woven into its pages calmed the mish-mash of voices fighting for attention in her young head. Hermione felt the cries of voices she hardly recognized but _must_ have been her own quiet at the power from her book of faerie tales, and a pressure she'd not noticed until then eased from her chest.

Hermione reopened her eyes when she could breathe freely once more and was met with a curious cocked head, feline eyes, and a wholly unamused '_Mreoooooowr.'_

She blinked. And then again. And then once more before she addressed the new, squashy faced cat who met her blink with a stare. They held each other's gazes for a long, _long_ moment before Hermione finally spoke and said with a pat to its head, "You're new."

. . . . .

After wrangling the new cat-whose name Hermione could only fathom was "Handsome" if his collar was anything to go by-from her room, she'd gone through a languorous routine to pick herself up and make her way downstairs. It was nearly noon by the time she set foot onto the ground floor and her ire tickled at the back of her neck. Hermione padded through the rooms until she finally found her fake aunt rummaging through one of the secret cubbies she hadn't thought of since her elder self's initial tenure there as the estate's housekeeper.

"Ruthie," Hermione said sharply, causing the other woman to jump in surprise. Ruth whirled around from where she'd been rummaging, one hand held to her chest in apparent shock. "I'd ordered you to wake me before sunrise, but it's now midday. Would you care to explain?"

Ruth Swanson flinched, the tone in Hermione's voice tugging at the magical strings puppeteering her daily tasks, and her brow creased. Hermione watched the woman's eyes flicker back and forth, watched how they glossed a bit as she searched her memory.

Ruth's mouth parted, a wholly subservient response on her tongue until a flicker of something else crossed her expression. The lines in her brow lessened and shifted to tighten the edges of her eyes instead in a feigned look of ease. "I'm sorry, Little Miss. You'd looked so peaceful that I didn't want to disturb you."

Hermione frowned. _ A lie._ An obvious one at that considering her nights had ceased being peaceful since she'd stowed away in this body to go on an escapade to lure a young Dark Lord to her cause. She tilted her head and examined the hunch to Ruth's shoulders, the way she still seemed to be sifting through her thoughts, and her grimace deepened. Her spells tying the woman to her were still there, her magic in the house was thick and practically particulate in the air. Hermione's hold on the other witch's mind and body was still palpable and yet...it was _far_ too soon for this.

"Poppy! You're awake!"

Ruthie's voice stirred Hermione from her thoughts with a jolt and when she refocused the woman was smiling brightly at her as if their previous exchange had never happened-as if she were the most wonderful thing she'd set her eyes on in a lifetime. Hermione swallowed at the thought and resolved to think on the new development later. She smiled back and greeted Ruthie warmly. "Good morning?"

Ruthie laughed and hurried over to the girl, draping an arm around her shoulders and hugging her tightly to her chest before pulling away enough to turn that wide, bright smile on her again. "Are you ready to go shopping for supplies today, little love?" Ruth lovingly smoothed Hermione's curls from her forehead before adding a sly, "Perhaps we'll run into that charming young man from your class again. What was his name, dear?"

The dusting of pink that she called to the tops of her cheeks came more easily than she cared for, and Hermione responded primly with, "His name was Tom Riddle, Aunt Ruthie."

"Ahh, yes," Ruthie intoned cheekily, "Riddle. He was a _very_ handsome one, wasn't he? Did you encounter him much at all during your time at Hogwarts last year, dear?"

Hermione peered up at the woman with a thinly veiled annoyance that she either did not notice or did not care about. She thought to herself how irksome it was that her puppet had forgotten _very_ simple orders yet managed to remember the "handsome" boy that was her current target. "No," Hermione lied plainly, "hardly at all."

Her response only seemed to amuse the older witch. "Really? That's a pity because he couldn't take his eyes from you at the platform, the poor dear. Perhaps this year you'll pay him a bit more mind? He seems like a nice boy." Ruth chuckled, gave Hermione another squeezed hug then released her to go collect her bag for their outing.

Hermione watched Ruthie exit and shook her head at the boggling concept of anyone referring to Tom Riddle as a 'nice boy.' She further resolved to look into what could possibly have gone wrong with her spellwork on the woman as she joined her for their trip.

. . . . .

Ruth and Hermione made their way to Diagon Alley without issue. The moment they set foot in the place, though, Hermione sent her puppet off with a command to occupy herself purchasing some of the more mundane supplies she would need for the next school year. With the task firmly embedded into her fake aunt's mind, Hermione made her way towards Borgin and Burkes. Weaving through the throngs of bustling magical folk, she had her focus set on the mental checklist of trinkets she would require for fulfilling her true needs over the upcoming terms. She was nearly at the entrance to Knockturn Alley when a tall, lanky boy smacked harshly into her shoulder, knocking the air from her and causing them both to stumble to the side.

Hermione's hand tightened on the leather strap of her aged satchel as she braced herself against the brick with the other. A flare of irritation crackled down her spine and she barely resisted the urge to reach for her wand. Instead, she made a measured tilt of her head, eyes narrowing slightly at the sight of the tall boy who had so blatantly run into her.

"I'd assumed you would move," he said before she could finish opening her mouth to speak.

She watched the boy's shoulders rise and fall in an uncaring shrug and her eyes narrowed further. "As I recall, I was walking on the _correct_ side of the street. It was _you_ that ran into _me._"

His shoulders shrugged again in that lazy manner and he asked, "Well, if you saw me then, why didn't YOU move?"

A heat at the absurdity of the conversation they were even having in that moment warmed her neck and was fast spreading into her cheeks. "Perhaps because I was in my proper place—"

The boy's nonchalant expression shifted into a condescending smirk as he let his eyes rove over her form, and he interrupted her rant again before it could gain steam. "If you truly knew your proper place, girl, you would have moved."

Hermione wasn't sure she'd heard him correctly at first and so she stood there, dumbfounded by his audacity for a solid few seconds while she replayed the conversation over in her head. She hadn't ventured out beyond Hogwarts much in this time except during her brief stays with Ruthie, but it was on occasions such as this that she vividly recalled the other prejudices existing in the time that stretched beyond mere blood status. With a dangerous glint in her eyes and her already barely reigned in control straining, her hand twitched towards her wand. However, just as her fingertips collided with the wood, another more familiar voice called out.

"Avery! Oy, mate! Where'd you get off to this time? Avery! There you—OH!" The pale blond head of Abraxas Malfoy came hurriedly into view and sidled up on the pair quickly but hesitantly. "Persephone," he said in a tremulous pitch, "I didn't expect to see you here today."

Her patience having been worn thoroughly into dust by this time, Hermione made exactly no effort to contain the sour, skeptical note to her words. "You hadn't expected to see me on the day that practically _everyone_ does all of their return to term shopping? Forgive me, Abraxas, if I admit that I don't believe that for a second." She paused when the rest of Tom's typical group appeared, amassing like a small barricade of handsome testosterone before her. Hermione half expected her pseudo-beau to appear next but when his presence, magical and physical, was nowhere to be found, a grimace emerged on her face.

"Where's Tom?" she asked crisply. Abraxas and Nott were the only ones of the group that shifted uncomfortably at the question and the meek and awkward display did nothing for aiding the headache that had been drumming behind her eyes since she awoke that morning.

"He's—ah—away. Still."

Her head cocked to the side, never removing her stare from Abraxas' pale face. "Away," she repeated, tasting each syllable carefully.

"Handling some family business," Abraxas supplied quickly at the look he received. No sooner than the words were out of his mouth was he fidgeting, looking torn between supplying even that much information but also obviously uncomfortable with leaving her with that little.

A look of understanding lightened her expression then and, for the first time that day, Hermione produced a genuine smile.

Abraxas felt his stomach flutter at the sight of it and his lips pulled up in a mirror of her own, if not a bit more lopsided. His head nodded of its own volition, reinforcing his statement and, for some reason, so oddly pleased to see Persephone beaming at him.

"Brilliant," Hermione chirped and, with a new bounce to her step, she closed the distance between them and placed a hand lightly on his cheek. "Thank you, Abraxas. You're always so helpful."

With that, and without sparing another glance to any of the others, Hermione continued toward Knockturn Alley, Nott and Mulciber hastily clambering apart to clear the path as she passed.

Tom's minions watched Hermione disappear into the darkness of the side street with mixed expressions ranging from peaceful adoration to sneering distaste and confusion. The only one of the group that said anything, however, was Avery as he watched them from a metre or so away.

His lip turned up and his brow furrowed as he addressed Abraxas. "Should I know who that is?"

Still a bit dreamy around the edges, Abraxas faced his mate again and said with that lopsided grin, "Oh, that's Persephone Callaghan. She's in our year. If Tom lets you in, you're liable to see much more of her."

Avery's frowning face shifted back to the darkness that'd swallowed the unpleasant girl and he mulled over his decisions on coming back to Hogwarts from his private tutoring at his friend's recommendation.

"Splendid."

. . . . .

At Persephone's behest, Tom set aside time to travel to the old town of Little Hangleton to meet his father. He had prodded her on several occasions as to why it was so crucial that he see the man he had never had the opportunity, nor the desire, to call his father only to be met with her cryptic and vague responses. All he had managed to squirrel out of her was that he had done this in the timeline she'd come from and it was an important step in their – for now he supposed it _was_ **their** – plight to rework pieces of their future.

While Tom did not entirely trust Persephone Callaghan, she was undoubtedly compelling. He recalled their shared times in her head, the only place she would allow him to have her as they both craved, and no, he could certainly not deny that she was compelling. This future she had come from-the one that had left her battered and ragged yet remarkably not broken, the one that had sent her plowing through time, upending the natural order of things at her whim-_this_ was a future that he would have liked to see firsthand. He could also not deny, however, the desire to have that wonderfully powerful witch on his arm. She was a sparkling gem of talent and cleverness in the midst of all the dull and lusterless magic users around them; and to not have her at his side, he was coming to realize, would indeed be a poor decision. Persephone claimed that she understood how to manipulate the events to make such a thing happen. Likewise, she claimed that she could also prevent his unfortunate physical…_deterioration_ he had witnessed in her memories with her guidance.

And so he had followed her instruction.

While Tom's adoption had been utterly devoid of any details for him until he had come to Hogwarts, little by little he was able to pry more information out of the old wizard that had brought him there. It took the better part of the first few years of his magical education but he had finally been able to obtain the names, and what he came to know as a very vague and extremely truncated version of how he'd come to be an orphan. With his mother's maiden name in hand in the town of Little Hangleton, Tom eventually found himself having the most unpleasant sort of conversation with the insane and uncouth man that he had the unfortunate pleasure of naming as his uncle: Morfin Gaunt.

As clearly insane as Morfin was, he had stopped his belligerent showiness over his gaudy golden ring at the local tavern to rant and mock Tom. The man had apparently recognized his resemblance almost instantly and Morfin had had no shyness about peeling back the coverings on the rest of the story of his ill-fated mother and her misdeeds with his lout of a father.

He'd gone on and on about the way Merope fawned over the man, spoke of him often, probably thought of him more so, and while Morfin and their father had been away serving time for their justified actions against some Muggle types, she'd finally gotten her way and spelled Tom Riddle Sr. into being hers. Morfin told of how after he was released he had gone back to the Gaunt home only to find his sister residing in Riddle manor. In a fit, he had shown up at her doorstep and demanded an explanation from the witch, and it was then that the real truth of Tom's childhood became evident.

The devil was in the details, as they say.

Morfin guffawed loudly with his retelling at the fact that his sister had to drug a bloke to keep him enamored with her. "Be satisfied you _did_ get that Muggle shite's looks, boy, else you'd likely 'ave to resort to the same sort of tricks as yer mum." He went on about how 'she'd kept him so intoxicated with her presence and her magic on the day to day that the filthy Muggle had no chance of finding his right mind.'

Merope had had her target _SO_ thoroughly entranced with her powers that Tom's father mistook his emotions and his urges for his own and scooped her up as his bride.

"Merope was weak," Morfin spat. "Always _been_ weak! Could've had 'im under her spell indefinitely, but the bint claimed she _'loved'_ 'im and thought to tell 'im the truth of it all. Albeit with a safety built in – that was _YOU,_ boy," Morfin said and then laughed again at his sister's demise. "That went south for 'er! That Riddle, he was furious! Spat in 'er face! Chased 'er out the Manor and shoved 'er down! Quite a commotion it caused in the square." Morfin stroked his beard as he recalled the scene, his dark eyes twinkling with delight. "I'd made it jus' in time to see her blubbering, on her knees, begging him not to walk away, not to leave. Oh, but 'ow he left 'er there…swollen and sobbing and _alone._ Abandoned you both like the trash you are."

_Abandoned._

The word reverberated in Tom's skull.

Once his father had come out of the spell that had him so enamored with his mother, the Muggle simply and willfully _abandoned_ her, _**while**_ she was expecting, no less. He'd just tossed her aside as though she was rubbish that needed a proper disposal. While his mother's desperate affections may have made her weak, as Morfin said, one did not simply _abandon_ their spouse in such a manner-not in the wizarding world anyway. Certainly not in a spectacle for the entire town to see! It simply wasn't _done!_

Tom had not seen much of the Muggle world beyond the span of the orphanage's walls, but he'd not dreamed they could be so beastly and repulsive as to cast aside someone they'd taken vows with; vows were a serious and permanent matter. Forced marriages happened all the time in their world, but you didn't just leave your spouse and child to be drudges in the streets. For Merlin's sake, if the man was so unhappy he could have taken a mistress or three – _that would have been the more proper way to do it,_ Tom thought. Both of his parents' actions were appalling and, while he would rather have saved himself the headache of being raised by that incompetent Mrs. Cole, Tom was glad he'd never known them.

Morfin hadn't stopped speaking there, of course. He'd gone on and on in his horrible manner, detailing the pitiful way Tom's mother had acted for her husband's forgiveness after the truth was brought to light. 'Abandoned' may have been what stuck in his mind, but Tom heard a far greater list of distasteful and vulgar language from Morfin's ghastly maw before he'd heard enough.

Confounding his uncle and shutting his lewd mouth to have him guide them to Riddle Manor was not difficult.

Taking Morfin's wand and rending his feeble mind apart so as to carefully reconstruct it for his purposes was decidedly easier.

Torturing his father into a blubbering mess of piss and shite before killing him along with his grandparents, well, that was one of the easiest tasks Tom had partaken in in quite some time.

_There was no room in the world for men or women that could not keep their vows._

Tom looked down at the fresh corpses at his feet, his eyes lingering a particularly long time on the Muggle man whose features he so closely shared. Tom's mouth was set in a sneer, his eyes hard and angry at the man whose neatly tailored jacket brushed his toes. Lifting a foot, he nudged the dead Tom Riddle Sr.'s head to and fro, examining his profile and his death glazed eyes. For a moment, the image of himself, older and looking much like this man, passed through his thoughts and his heart saw fit to stutter. He clenched a hand to his chest, willing away the unsettling feeling and remembering how he was safely spared from this very fate thanks to the horcrux he'd created merely months ago.

Tom's thoughts drifted to his journal, to the piece of his soul that was firmly seated within its pages, but he still found himself unsettled.

_There was only one item protecting him from this fate of death._

His thoughts drifted further still to his dark witch.

_There was only one item protecting him and only one __**person**__ that knew how to dismantle it._

The recollection of Persephone's magical essence tickled along his skin like a tangible thing.

Her laughter, her smiles, her sly looks of cleverness and knowledge, they were the first images to flicker through Tom's mind as he lost himself in thought. He'd caught Persephone, more than once, looking fondly at him in class when he would give answers with an ease and precision that seldom came from any others aside from the pair of them and committed them to memory. Even when they would have their rows, there was a strange softness to her eyes and when they finally cleared from her fury, they always turned up to him, dark, apologetic pools of swirling chocolate that he could lose himself in for hours. Her lips would purse at her lapse in control and he would taste them and she would eventually let him wade through her mind and taste all the rest of her tantalizing sparks of power to make amends.

He could taste her even then, remembered the addictive, intoxicating favour of her magic and if he was honest with himself, he craved it like air to a dying man.

…_she'd kept him so intoxicated with her presence and her magic on the day to day that the filthy Muggle had no chance of finding his right mind..._

Tom's stomach dropped and his dazed vision cleared. He felt a trickle of cold sweat form and drip down the back of his neck as he stared into his father's face and once again imagined that it wasn't his father at all.

There was only one horcrux and one person who knew how to destroy it; the very same person that had later, after they'd cooled from their high, cautioned him that he must be frugal with the creation of them, and said that _she_ would guide him in the creation of _'just enough.' _

He swallowed loudly as an entirely new line of conspiracies manifested in his head.

The repeated words humming in his ears as he hurriedly retrieved the Gaunt family ring from his confunded uncle and used his own wand to trace along the space between his ribs where the newest splinter of his soul floated, were those of a renewed and frantic warning: _Persephone Callaghan is a dangerous witch._

_. . . . ._

September 1943

It was the first of September and Hermione was alone in a cabin on the Hogwarts Express on her way to the castle that was once a home away from home. She had originally intended on seeking Tom out at King's Cross to sit with him and discuss his findings over the summer, however the persistent headache thrumming against her temples had her seeking refuge in a car by herself. Too exhausted to properly ward the car in its entirety, she opted for chasing out any parties interested in joining her with an offhanded flick of her wand instead. It was there that she sat, tiredly and silently, with her head pressed against the glass of her cabin window, staring at the landscape as it whizzed by and fiddling with a simple, yet elegant bracelet Ruthie had given her before leaving the platform.

. . .

_Hermione looked at the magically molded golden poppy flower where it dangled, strung between a stunning array of rounded rose quartz, honey-yellow topaz, cherry opal, and deep garnet gemstones and knew the piece of jewelry had been anything but inexpensive._

"_A-aunt Ruthie," Hermione stammered, at a loss – this sort of thing wasn't a part of Ruth's 'programming.' "This is too much."_

_Ruth just laughed and stroked her knuckles lightly over Hermione's cheek. "Oh piffle," she said, "just a trinket for my little love. I saw it in the window and it reminded me of you. I wanted you to have it."_

_Hermione frowned at the dainty object then back up to Ruth who was looking back with her fully open and honest look of affection painted clearly on her face. The sight of it made Hermione's chest tighten and an unwelcome swell of reciprocated fondness start to collect. She swallowed, readying herself to spit a harsh order that would pluck Ruthie's strings and command her to cease such actions but, as the older witch fastened the bracelet around her wrist and moved in to place a soft kiss to her forehead, the only thing that left her mouth was a soft 'thank you.'_

"_Never mention it," Ruthie said with a beaming smile. "Have a wonderful term! Don't forget to write me often and don't hesitate if there is anything you need-anything at all!"_

. . .

They sped past a thicket of trees and Hermione watched the countryside open up into the familiar stretch of rolling hills while still chastising herself for accepting the trinket.

"Not enough rest," Hermione muttered a tired excuse to herself for her behavior. "S'all it is…" Her words slurred and her lids drooped lower, even against the screaming voices in her head.

Unlike herself, the young Hermione's consciousness - the one whose body she'd usurped for her purposes here - never seemed to truly grow tired in the prison space she'd walled her into in her mind. The girl screamed and cried and demanded that she be released, that her older self had no right to keep her locked away.

The very concept of it made Hermione's older consciousness groan at how much of an incessant pain she was.

Whispers of the things she wanted to do, the things she _would_ do to that screaming voice if she could successfully kill that young self and not send her own world into a paradoxical spin, grew louder with every screechy yell and each harshly spat word by her captive. She sought out her book a bit frantically when the yelling and the whispers had bloomed into a cacophonous noise that'd begun to set her teeth on edge. Hermione shut her eyes against the shrieking and hissing sounds of discord and as soon as her fingers touched the pages of her worn copy of _Tales of Beedle the Bard_, a cooler, more heady voice spoke over the others.

'_Shutter them out,'_ it soothed. _'Focus on your task. You are doing so well…just a bit longer now…just a bit longer.'_

This voice was lovely.

This voice was _beautiful._

It brought with it the most serene sense of calm and ease and so pleasantly drowned out the others.

Hermione leaned more heavily against the glass, the voice from the book urging her to rest and regain her focus. A tension released from her shoulders and she vaguely felt the shift in the air around her as it grew cool and relaxing. Her breaths came more slowly, each of her exhales puffing a faint cloud into the air with the drop in temperature. Her forehead, once pounding and achy, felt better and better the longer she left it pressed to the cooling glass in the train car.

Hermione felt herself on that blissful edge of slumber wrapped snugly in the ethereal presence the other voice brought with it, but mere seconds before she was about to tip over that precipice she was roughly jostled from her sleep by the sound of the cabin door sliding open. In a second, she startled upright, the temperature around her dissolved into the muggier, stale cabin air more common to the train and her wand came up at the ready. Her agitation lessened only mildly when Tom Riddle's frame straightened in her doorway.

"Tom," she spoke softly and she rose from her seat to greet him. "I'd expected you sooner."

Tom watched her approach, stiffening almost imperceptibly when her free hand came out to rest flat against his chest and smooth the edges of his blazer beneath his robes. He raised a hand to cup the back of the arm that stroked his chest but he'd hesitated in his movement. If the twitch to her fingers and the falter of her smile was any indication, Persephone had noticed.

"I apologize," Tom said smoothly, "I had some things I was taking care of with the other Slytherins that took precedence. As it is, I only had enough time to come alert you that we will be arriving at the station soon and to be sure to be in uniform."

Hermione's eyebrows rose at that and she tilted her head lightly to one side, eying him up and down for his curious behavior. He appeared ever his stoic self but there was something very _off_ about him in those moments. It took her a minute, as well as what she was sure was an awkward length of silence, before she realized that his presence was hidden from her. She probed a bit further, seeking the unique traces of his magical signature that she'd come to know quite intimately during their few months in school together and found that it was well and truly shut away. From _her._

Persephone's hand plucked itself from his chest and Tom felt her essence recede quickly from where it'd previously been trying to mingle with his own. A piece of him was screaming inside at the loss of that wonderful trill of her energy but he stubbornly snuffed it out.

"What is _this?_" she asked harshly, stepping away to create distance between them once more.

When Tom met her eyes again, he saw something akin to hurt flicker there before being overcome with a more familiar bout of her simmering anger he was so used to. His stomach flopped but he ignored that too and presented her with the same sort of sly smile he provided his professors. "Just a reminder of where we are, Miss Callaghan. Now if you'll excuse me, I've several other students to get to." Without another word, he retreated from the car and shut the door firmly behind him.

At his casual dismissal, Hermione felt a combination of rage and embarrassment tingling through her. Her eyes narrowed, her hair frizzed and crackled, and her hands clenched into fists at her sides.

It was there, in the strange stiffness of his posture, in the imposed void of his presence around her. She knew, without doubt, that something _unplanned_ had occurred over the summer.

Heat flushed up her neck and cheeks.

Her hands continued to clench and unclench.

The lights in her cabin flickered with her growing anger.

She could fix this.

She could still fix this.

. . . . .

The next morning, Hermione made her way down from Ravenclaw tower sporting dark circles beneath her eyes. The voices in her head had not stopped warring for her attention at all the evening before-the malicious one's whispers turning on her to speak of her incompetence at keeping Tom Riddle in line. Hermione sought help from her book, but even the soothing tones that spoke to her from its pages had done little to ease her restlessness enough to rest. She'd lost track of how many hours she'd been awake, her tongue was heavy in her mouth and her throat parched, her hair was a frizzed mess, and thanks to the writhing energies inside of her, Hermione felt like her skin had been sheared off and replaced by ants who were presently dancing across each and every one of her nerve endings.

In short, it had been a very, very bad night.

Despite everything, Hermione knew she could still set things right. She'd been through far worse than this and made it so far; she wasn't about to let the adolescent version of the Dark Lord throw a spanner in the works. With her sights set on the Slytherin table in the Great Hall, Hermione gripped her wand in one hand and the leather strap of her satchel in the other and made her way to what had been her normal seat among the boys for the better part of last term.

As expected, Tom and his minions were all lined up in their usual seats, though a smaller than usual space had been left at his side and was currently being taken up by what appeared to be Abraxas' school bag. Hermione quirked a brow at its presence as she approached but resolved to continue anyway. It wasn't until she'd reached what had been her normal spot beside Tom that an unwelcome yet familiar drawl stopped anything else she'd had her mind set to do.

"Lost your way, harpy? This is the Slytherin table, not really a place for you bird types."

Hermione looked up from Abraxas' precariously perched bag to source the sound of the voice, her eyes slitting when they came to rest on that dreadful Avery boy she'd met in the Alley. "I am aware, actually," she answered in a clipped tone and added, "this is, and has been, my place since last term."

Avery snorted at the way her chin jutted out stubbornly and bit off a piece of egg from the end of his fork. He chewed only once or twice before speaking, his mouth still full of food. "What did I tell you about learning your place?" Resting his elbows on the table on either side of his plate, he gestured at the spot that still held his mate's school bag. "Looks like 'your spot's' taken."

She bristled at his openly disrespectful, ill-mannered behavior. Even less patient with his insolence now than she'd been in the alleyway, Hermione felt the charge of energy roiling off of her. Judging by the way Tom's minions shifted and fidgeted – with even Avery's smug expression seeming to falter – she knew they felt it too. Doing her best to calm herself, Hermione breathed deeply in through her nose and blew the breath out shakily through her mouth.

Only when she could speak without gritting her teeth did she say, "You're mistaken, I'm afraid." She turned to the blond boy to her side. "Abraxas, move your bag."

Imagine her surprise when Abraxas Malfoy said and did absolutely nothing, didn't even turn to look at her – acted as if she didn't even _**exist**__._ The only tell indicating that he was _well_ aware of her presence there was the way his shoulders came up around his ears and his face dipped impossibly lower towards his plate of food.

The sneer that curled her lips was positively _**rabid**_.

Whispers in her head turned into laughter in her ears.

_Useless._

_Incompetent._

_How could you fail so spectacularly when I'd set __**everything**__ up for you?_

_Stupid girl._

_Foolish child._

_Idiot—_

Hermione took another breath to distract from the words and finally looked to Tom who was pointedly looking _not_ at her and also acting – though doing a better job of it – as though she wasn't hovering at his back. "Tom—"

"Let's not make this complicated, Miss Callaghan," Tom interrupted coolly. "As much as I find Mister Avery's manner crude and repugnant—" He paused to give the other boy a meaningful look and the prat had the decency to look reprimanded. "—he is not wrong and your assigned table is across the Hall. The arrangement for your escort last term was fulfilled and I believe, unless I have misjudged your intelligence, that you are familiar enough with the layout of the castle to make your way to your classes. _Alone._"

The last word was said with such finality that her response had lodged itself in her throat. Hermione's stare darkened into one that burned holes into the back of Tom's head. She barely contained the feral growl that bubbled up at this series of unforeseen events, and all the deep breaths in the world would not drown out the mocking laughter rattling around in her skull.

Traces of her magic were licking past the barriers she'd tucked around it, heating the plates and flatware nearby.

Tom went rigid when the fork and knife he held grew too hot to hold onto and he saw the edges of his golden platter take on an orange glow and smelled the scent of his burning breakfast. He placed his utensils down in as controlled a manner as he could manage and flicked his eyes up to glance towards the professors' table on the dais. They were all engrossed in idle conversation with one another…all save for Professor Dumbledore, who had paused in whatever story he was telling Professor Slughorn. Tom saw the old man's head starting to turn their way and curtly addressed Persephone once more, "Have I misjudged you, Miss Callaghan? Or will you continue to linger and end up causing a _scene_?"

At the emphasis of his second question, Hermione managed to wrangle control of herself. She too spared a glance up to the dais, though she was met with the full on curious stare of Albus Dumbledore, who was making no motions to hide his interest in what she was doing hovering at the Slytherin table and looking so put out. She shut her eyes, effectively dropping the old wizard's stare.

"It appears that it was I that was mistaken after all, Mister…_Avery._" Hermione reopened her eyes and was back to looking at the distasteful boy who – much to her satisfaction – flinched under this new, eerily calm look she gave him while committing his name to memory. "My apologies, gentlemen, for interrupting your meal. Perhaps we'll see each other in some of our classes once again this year."

Hermione adjusted her bag strap and took one final look at the side of Tom's head, before bidding them all farewell as she turned and stomped away.


	21. Chapter 20 - Bewitched (Book II)

**20 – Bewitched**

October 1943

Hermione had a free period that morning before herbology, which she had spent working through some new arithmancy calculations in an attempt to get to the root of her mucked up timeline issues.

She had plotted for countless minutes and hours and days before arriving there – truly countless, for she only had a vague grasp on exactly how much time she'd spent rewinding and replaying time over and over to learn what she needed for this venture. Everything had been so neatly scheduled and arranged! Hermione's arithmancy work had even gone so far as to calculate dozens upon dozens of factors relevant to the time and places she would occupy during her stay in the past simply to develop a comfortable adjustment percentage for errors.

In short, she'd gone entirely out of her way to attempt to proactively _factor in_ the unknown!

And yet there she was, attempting to string back together people and events in a way that would allow her ideal future to unfold, but with many more things tilting out of whack than she'd originally anticipated. Before anything else spiraled further out of control, she resolved to source out the original divergence from her plotted timeline and remap everything in order to understand how to get it all back on track. As such, Hermione had been working on calculations since she'd spent the second night at the castle wide awake and seething over Tom's behavior.

Hermione worked her way through identifying events that may have come about from her supplying Tom with the incorrect copy of her dark tome to enlighten him of horcruxes, though she remained confused as to how that particular copy made its way into her belongings in the first place. While there were some notes to his behavior that fell in line with her figures, this sudden change of pace at the start of their school year did _not_ make any lick of sense with the information she had at her fingertips. There were too many unknowns for her to realign her predictions and reveal what trials were awaiting her now as well as options to circumvent them. The long and short of it was simply that she needed MORE information. However, with Tom being as slippery as an eel along with keeping his followers close at hand and under a tight umbrella of protection, Hermione remained unsuccessful in her efforts thus far.

She _would _get her answers and she would get them _soon._ Today was another day to try to corner the snake and so, with her free period that day, she lingered in the courtyard nearest to the greenhouses and put quill to parchment to try and solve some equations regarding Ruthie's strange behavior while waiting for him to appear. So engrossed in her world of numbers and prophecy was she that Hermione lost track of time entirely. When the bell rang, she looked up from her papers, cursed under her breath, and shoved everything into her satchel.

Hermione stalked through the courtyard towards her herbology class, trying to catch Tom on the way out from his and beat the mass of students that would block her way. She'd been on track to intercept him again that day but, thanks to her distraction and the flood of students filing out from the transfiguration corridor as well as other scrambling bodies that seemed to bleed from the damned castle walls, she would be lucky if she even got to her own class on time. Frustrated at the pace of the 'Gryffindors travelling arm in arm in front of her, she wheeled around them and managed to plow headfirst into just the man she was hoping to find.

Hermione let out a surprised grunt and stumbled.

Tom's own breath puffed out from the impact of her smacking into his chest and his arms reflexively shot out to catch her.

Tom already had a look of distaste on his face to turn on whomever was foolish enough to cause such a spectacle, but when he set his eyes on Persephone Callaghan his disgusted sneer faltered. His eyes scanned the lines of her face for an agonizing set of seconds, taking in the way her cheeks were flushed from her haste, how they hollowed from her pants of exertion, and particularly how her mouth was parted from her elevated breathing-all lustrous and plumped from how she always tended to bite at her lips. She looked up at him from beneath long, dark lashes and met his stare with those huge, entrancing eyes.

Persephone was _precisely_ as beautiful as he recalled and it stunned him for the briefest of moments.

"_Tom-"_

As soon as his name left her lips in her typical prim tone, Tom shook himself from his trance and promptly dropped her, her shocked yelp as she fell turning more than a few heads. Those dark eyes of hers widened, her arms wind-milled in the air for several seconds, and then she went tumbling ungracefully onto her bum in front of him and all the other passersby. He didn't stay to watch her complete her fall, simply stepped around her and shoved past any other student that was too amused at the scene to move.

As Hermione fell, as the swish of Tom Riddle's robes brushed her flailing arms, and the courtyard erupted into taunting laughter and guffaws, her mind filled with dark, _**dark**_ things that she was going to do to that boy once she'd finished her calculations.

. . . . .

_Prat. _

_Idiot. _

_Wanker. _

_Bloody fickle piece of __**SHITE**__._

A flood of _many_ more unpleasant names for Tom Riddle filtered through her head as Hermione righted herself, ignoring the laughs and stares of her fellows to continue on to class. She had hoped to have things settled, to have everything back on track by now, but a whole month – _a whole bloody MONTH –_ after that stupid _idiot-prat-wanker-__**GIT**_ dismissed her at breakfast in the Great Hall, she'd still had no success in getting to him to determine what had occurred over the summer to turn everything so horridly on its ear. If she'd simply wanted to relive the embarrassment of her school years, she wouldn't have gone through all the damned trouble of ripping apart time and space!

Their course schedules for the year did very little to help her problem with them sharing only Advanced Arithmancy and Ancient Runes, although he even managed to avoid her there by partnering with the few minions that were actually able to achieve N.E.W.T. level courses; Tom Riddle, that blighter! With everything else turned out of whack, she'd not received the schedule she'd anticipated, and her efforts to alter things after she arrived at the school when everything was already set in motion had been grossly unsuccessful. Without her time turner at her disposal, realigning the current events was a great deal trickier than Hermione would have liked to admit.

To date, her only real victory had been passing him in class or the Hall and successfully rubbing Tom's nose in the fact that a large portion of his followers were frankly too dumb to achieve their same level of academic greatness and couldn't save him forever.

But _**OH**_ how she savored those victories.

Hermione wallowed in the warmth of the flames of his ire as they flared each time she saw fit to remind him, in fact.

The longer things strayed from the carefully plotted course of her plans, however, the louder the dissenting voices in her head became. She tried to quiet them by immersing herself in the pages of her Elder self's horcrux and found far less help than she needed to solidly stabilize her sanity and presence of mind. Some days were better than others; she surmised that today would be one of those 'not better' days.

"The git will get his," Hermione grumbled to herself, stomping the rest of the way to herbology and finding a seat. "He'll be under my thumb in the future and pleading for mercy by the end of the damn term!"_ If she could ever catch him, anyway..._ The fact that she'd had to still her hand this long was torturous. But without knowing what set everything off to begin with, and-while she practically _**burned**_ to curse him into insanity until he was begging her for it-she had to be 'careful_._'

Hermione grimaced deeply when she thought about being 'careful' and how much she would rather trip and slip and flay him where he stood if she knew such a thing wouldn't completely bugger everything up. She allowed herself a satisfied smile while she pictured the image of his head on fire.

The rest of the students filed in around her and Professor Beery, who had been rummaging around in another portion of the greenhouse, ambled in to stand before them all with an armful of bright pink fuzzy earmuffs. The appearance of those horrid fluffy monstrosities and a quick glance around the classroom to finally notice the several leafy green stalks peeking out of grey noggin shaped roots veritably confirmed that, no, today was not one of those better days.

"Good morning class!" Professor Beery yelled more loudly than necessary with his own protective ear-wear already in place. "I know that we were all looking forward to milking our Venomous Tentacula today and recording our results, but I received a request from St. Mungo's to assist in the development of a new draught to treat and cure petrification! Isn't that _exciting_?"

A slew of murmurs broke out among the students, some were excited while others held a distinguishable note of worry in their tones. Hermione looked over her crowd of classmates, doing her best to listen in over the white noise of screaming and mockery in her mind. _Petrification,_ they said. _Last year,_ they whispered. All the allusions to the 'incidents' of the year before were there but nobody dared to really speak of it, nor to look at her-one of the 'victims'- too closely, and certainly _never_ mention their dead classmate's name. Even Professor Beery with his ugly fuzzy earmuffs kept a wide, positive smile plastered on his face as though a boy hadn't been hospitalized and a girl wasn't killed right there on site.

Hermione snorted at how some things never seemed to change. Shaking her head, she extracted the calculations she'd been working on from her bag and got to scribbling as the wizard continued talking.

"We'll resume with our standard lessons tomorrow, but today we will be repotting the primary ingredient for their improved draught! Who can guess what that ingredient is?" The Professor paused for just a second before he found the familiar bushy head he was looking for. "Miss Callaghan?"

She blinked and looked up from her parchment only to find the entire classroom as well as her professor staring at her expectantly. Her mouth twitched toward a frown. "I'm sorry, Professor, I hadn't raised my hand."

Professor Beery scoffed and cheerily replied, "Nonsense, of course you did." The _'you always do'_ was heavily implied in his pleased tone. "Now, what ingredient would we be repotting for a draught to treat petrification?"

Hermione bristled. The _one_ time her arm hadn't been up in the air, flailing… "Mandrakes, sir."

The Professor's smile broadened, oblivious to Hermione's growing annoyance. "Yes. Go on!"

_Oh for heaven's sake…_ Hermione resisted rolling her eyes and humored the man. "Also known as Mandragora, the variation I surmise we are to handle today being the _Mandragora Offininarum_. It is a member of the nightshade family of florae. Muggles have used it since ancient times as a pain killer and sedative while the wizarding community utilizes its magical properties to treat lesser conditions such as localized palsies as well as more serious ones up to and including full body petrification caused by magical creatures – namely gorgons and related entities – or catastrophic spellwork."

Professor Beery's smile was so wide it stretched nearly off his face entirely. He clapped his hands together excitedly. "Brilliant, Miss Callaghan! Wonderful! I _DO_ so love it when you do that! Ten points to Ravenclaw! And, yes, as you said, we will be repotting the _Mandragora Offininarum_ today so that by the end of the year we shall have several specimens to ship off to St. Mungo's for their efforts in developing a new, and _improved,_ draught! Now class, if you'll please come to the front and collect your earmuffs, we shall begin."

It had felt like ages since Hermione had repotted baby mandrakes, though she found the motions and movements had been very much drilled into her thanks to her need for excellence and perfection in all things. Her herbology class was small that year and, as such, they were stretched thin for the volume of work that needed to be done. She had lost count of how many of the screaming buggers she'd buried in the dirt already but she deemed it not nearly enough as their shrill, yet muted, wails beat against the protective muffs over her ears. She already had a headache from the voices that remained unmuffled inside. Hermione was ready for this session of these crying, screeching, sniveling little shites to be over and _**done.**_

Hermione prepared yet another pot for yet another screaming root, ripped it from its previous home by its leaves and shoved it into the hollowed dirt of the new planter.

_You're so __**weak. Powerless.**_

She startled when her own voice hissed more loudly in her head than it had spoken all day. Shaking it off again, she began to shift the dirt around the wriggling plant's grey body, nestling it snugly all the way up to its fat chin before the hiss came again.

_How did I ever think a __**failure**__ such as yourself would be able to cultivate the Dark Lord to do our bidding? Even at sixteen, he's too much for you. . ._

Hermione grimaced, the tiny mandrake flailing so much in its new pot that it flung clumps of soil into her face. She flinched and shoved the thing more firmly into the pot, pressing down on its head and earning herself a louder cry whose effects she could feel seeping through her protection. The edges of her vision darkened as she shoveled the dirt back into place around it with her free hand.

_He was right. . ._

The scene before her warbled and Hermione grabbed another fistful of dirt to shove it into place around the mandrake's head. She gathered it around its mouth but it still wailed and thrashed and screamed.

_**Rodolphus**__ was __**right. **_

Blackness had crept in from all sides, the tiny creature blaring its lungs out in a defensive effort to render her unconscious. She didn't care about that, though, couldn't care about it. All that she could hear was that one mocking tone pounding in her head.

_Tom seemed to think so too._

Her hand, full of another fresh scoop of dirt, plunged into the pot and shoved the soil into the mandrake's mouth. Its scream was muffled further but it still wiggled in the dirt so she hefted another batch of it in hand and jammed it down the plant's throat.

_You were only good for __**one**__ thing. . ._

Hermione held her grip there, the fingers of her gloved hand digging into the side of the young mandrake's head as it squealed.

_The voice laughed_.

She felt a crunch beneath her hand and moisture collected around the tips of her fingers where they'd broken through the thick first layer of the mandrake's flesh. A dark fluid seeped from the punctures and bruises.

_The laughter grew louder._

Hermione grit her teeth and squeezed harder, the heel of her hand digging into what would have been the creature's throat until its cries shifted into coughs and gags. She felt the mandrake's lifeblood collecting in the woolen gloves she wore but thought nothing of it.

She just wanted it quiet.

She wanted it to stop laughing-wanted them _all_ to stop laughing.

She wanted the words to-just-_**STOP**_.

A flood of soil plopped in, seemingly from nowhere, covering the mandrake all the way past the top of its head; immediately, the plant's shrieking ceased.

Hermione's vision cleared and she shook off the daze she'd fallen into. Carefully extracting her arm from the large mound of dirt, she blinked up at the figure of a boy standing on the other side of her table. He was sans robe and blazer with his sleeves rolled up, with only his yellow and black tie giving her any indication where he hailed from.

The boy gave her a friendly, lopsided smile and yelled with hopes of her hearing through her earmuffs. "Sorry! Didn't mean to splash you! I just finished mine and you looked to be having trouble, thought I'd come and give you a hand!"

Hermione's brow furrowed briefly, but she nodded anyway and replied just as loudly. "Thanks for that."

"Not a problem!" He grinned. "Trick's to cover their eyes too—a bit like parakeets that way, you know? They'll fall right to sleep! Anyway…did you need any help with the rest of them?"

She glanced at the few pots she had left, then around to all the remainder that the rest of the class had to work through. Hermione barely resisted her urge to remove her ear protection in its entirety so she could merrily black out and be done with the day already. But, with how close to the surface her other consciousnesses floated, she woefully thought better of it. "Yes, please. That would be splendid. Thank you—sorry, I'm afraid I didn't catch your name."

The boy gave her a nod back and shuffled around to ready her another pot, prepping it for her with soil and pausing only to reach his hand across the table and give hers a firm shake. "Pettigrew! Lawrence Pettigrew!"

Hermione's eyebrows shot up. _Pettigrew._ She didn't recall meeting a Pettigrew to be on her agenda so soon. She would have to check her notes once back at the dorm. If nothing else, it would help her adapt her calculations_._ She might be able to use this_._

"Good meeting you, Lawrence, my name is Persephone."

"Pleasure to meet you as well, Miss Callaghan—" She gave him a curious look at the way he addressed her and in return Lawrence gave a bashful grin. "Properly, I mean!"

"Of course!" She smiled widely as the voices in her head quieted at this interesting new development. "The pleasure's all mine."

_Perhaps it wasn't such a bad day after all…_

. . . . .

Since his somewhat messy snubbing of Persephone Callaghan, Tom had taken up a new pastime of reading as he walked. Subsequently, his minions had taken up flanking him on either side when the halls were wide enough, falling in step before and behind him to clear a clean walking path when they weren't.

While the course load for his sixth year had lessened, free periods abounding here and there with ample study time at the end of the week, Tom still found himself crunched for time when it came to playing the part of the perfect student while still accomplishing his'extracurricular' research.

Though he loathed to admit it aloud, the dark tome that had entered his possession via the very witch he was so avidly avoiding at present was a beguiling read. If he were to think on it, Tom would have been hard pressed to count on one hand the number of times he'd read through it from cover to cover, still finding something new and intriguing to try every time. It was due to Persephone, in fact, that he was so thoroughly combing its pages once more.

His heart palpitated uncomfortably at the mere thought of her name.

The witch was the only one that knew how to unmake his horcruxes – or _horcrux_, singular, as far as she knew – and this book detailed explicitly how to create them; though, for as many times as he'd searched through it, it made no apparent mention of how they were disbanded. Though his cooler, calmer sense had seen fit to leave him in her presence at breakfast so many mornings ago…and in the transfiguration courtyard the previous day, ridding himself of the girl had been entirely necessary.

Barely a waking moment passed where Persephone wasn't in some corner of his mind or in his field of vision, trying to trap him in her path 'to talk.' She was in his thoughts when in class, paired with even his smartest follower, Tarquin Nott, who was still hardly a mention when compared to her achievements. Merlin's sake, even at breakfast in the Hall, when Abraxas would rattle his knife about in the marmalade jar, the bloody witch was _**there**_.

How had he been so blind? For as in tune to her magical signature as he'd been, how had he missed it? How had he not seen when she'd hooked him, ensnared him and appealed to him with such enchantments?

It was _**so**_ clear to him, what she'd done: She'd bewitched him in the same vein as his mother did his father.

Tom grimaced, nose still in the book. Leave it to his filthy Muggle side to taint his ability to resist such magicks. He would _NOT_ be made weak by such paltry emotions. While he could admit that his manner in distancing himself from her could have been handled a bit more…delicately, it neverthelessnecessitated his current, urgent need to understand more of his horcruxes' properties.

It was unfortunate, he mused with that grimace still firmly affixed to his face, that he had not thought to question her more thoroughly prior to allowing those harsh words to roll off his tongue. The textual evidence of any further details of the ins and outs of a horcrux were, to say the least, abysmally lacking.

His soon-to-be minion Avery softly announced their arrival at the edge of the Great Hall causing Tom to finally look up from his research. Much against his will, his gaze drifted across the room in a seemingly idle expression although he felt his eyes roving, searching, _wanting_ to find that familiar head of hair in the sea of students. It didn't take long – it never did – but the sight that greeted him when his stare came to rest upon his target was the very last thing he'd ever expected.

In that sea of students, amidst a crowd of fodder with their hideous yellow and black ties, was his Persephone, smirking merrily at a set of Hufflepuff girls and shortly thereafter accepting a portion of a pasty from a grinning Hufflepuff _**boy.**_

Tom's foul expression intensified to an incalculable degree.

. . . . .

Days had passed since he first noticed Persephone's new seating arrangement. Tom did his best to ignore it but, when the frequency of having to dodge the witch in the halls lessened and her distinct lack of paying him any sort of mind in the few classes they shared became evident, he found his penchant for trying to find her in the Hall even more oppressive than before.

She was there. Again. With that…_Hufflepuff._

Tom sliced a sausage neatly into bite-sized pieces with his fork and knife all while looking – glaring really – at the back of her stupid bushy head.

_Lawrence Pettigrew._

It wasn't difficult to find out the boy's name or the fact that he was a sixth year like Tom himself. After scanning the documents Nott had been able to procure for him, Tom came to the conclusion that Pettigrew was rather unremarkable. Certainly the boy maintained passable scores in his chosen academics, apparently wanted to go into some fool career assisting St. Mungo's if the transcripts Nott had gotten his hands on were correct. He was also, apparently, clever enough with plants to occupy much of Persephone Callaghan's time talking about them if the few reports of their conversations that had been delivered to him were accurate. Plants and whatever the hell else he was talking to her about at the breakfast and the _lunch_ and the _**dinner**_ table.

_Just WHAT about this poorly educated and underwhelming prat was interesting enough to dominate almost the entirety of her free time?_

The edge of Tom's knife and the tines of his fork scraped and screeched against his plate as he continued to saw along with the grinding motion of his jaw.

"Tom?"

Tom's eyes snapped to his left from where he'd focused them on Persephone's lush curls to lock onto the long, decidedly less pleasant-to-look-at, gaunt face of Elliot Avery. Avery shrunk under his gaze and the ease to his subservient posturing made him bristle.

Tom detested the necessary evil that were minions. They couldn't think or speak for themselves, always wanting power but never knowing how to get it; always just riding coattails of those like himself that knew how to acquire everything they would never _deserve_ to have. He hated them, hated these idiots, and every passing moment in their company a part of him longed for – _ached_ for – someone that was not a groveling piece of rubbish.

Tom's eyes had released Avery from his glare and shifted back in the direction of Persephone of their own accord.

Avery looked up from his nervous hunch, observing as Tom's attention moved from him to the annoying witch he'd bumped into all 'once upon a time' ago. He saw his new master's tight-lipped expression and offered in his usual false bravado, "I've got to say, I'm a bit surprised about that one. Didn't quite strike me as that type, you know?"

"_Type?_" Tom asked, annoyed, but had moved on to at least forking his sausage and going through the motions of chewing a piece or two between resetting his mouth into a grim line.

"Yeah," Avery said, clueless and with more confidence as he began to dig into his dinner as well. "You could tell by the mouth on her that she had all sorts of 'free range' ideas. I wouldn't have guessed she also had 'free range' thighs."

Tom's jaw froze mid-chew and his glare resurfaced, locking onto Avery instantly. That the boy couldn't feel the heat of it, never thinking to look up, and just merrily salted and prodded his sliced potatoes was an amazing show of ignorance.

Around them, Abraxas barely kept from choking on his food at Avery's statement, Nott tried not to squirm, and even Lestrange, Mulciber, and Rosier fought hard not to make any sudden movements as their Lord's telltale fury simmered in the air between them.

. . . . .

"_Did you hear?"_

Hermione looked up from the light reading she was doing in the common room to get her mind off the more stressful, and still incomplete, arithmancy equations that had taken over most of her waking moments to observe the gaggle of her most hated classmates chattering loudly as they entered the tower.

"_Yeah. It's a real shame. I heard he was going to try out for their Quidditch team but—"_

"_HA! Good luck with that! He's lucky to still have arms and legs after that sort of accident! Best not to tempt fate with Quidditch too."_

"_Really! But what sort of idiot manages to get into Advanced Potions in the first place and confuses alihotsy leaves for asphodel in their Draught of Living Death?"_

One of the girls snorted in agreement to the stupidity. _"I know! They don't even look the same. Bad luck for him that it turned the whole brew into a bomb."_

Hermione shut her book with a loud thud and looked up from the mass of cushions she had been resting on. "Who are you talking about?"

The group of girls stopped in their tracks, looks of trepidation and disgust flitting between them. Hermione knew most of them as the posse that saw fit to follow Olive Hornby around the year prior but, with poor, _dear_ Olive's unwillingness to return to school after finding Myrtle's cold, dead corpse sprawled out in the girls' lavatory, they'd had to find a new alpha bitch. It was fortunate for them that they hadn't grown into anything of use to her in that time-not as of yet anyway-but still, Hermione found herself trying to recall any of their names.

_The dark haired girl with the green eyes…Deliah? Delilah. Deborah…no…_

That very girl was the one who spoke up, seeming the least hesitant to address Persephone from her comfortable position of looking down her nose at her. "I'd think you would know, Persephone. Elliot Avery. You know, one of your boyfriend's—_OH_. Oh, wait. I'm so sorry-" She wasn't. "-you and Tom Riddle aren't actually a _thing_ anymore, are you?"

Hermione quirked a brow at the petty, and overly dramatic, dig. She smiled coolly at Demimi…Demona…Desiree-whatever her name was. "I had no idea that poor Elliot had any sort of accident," Hermione said, delighting in the fall of the other girl's expression when she didn't even acknowledge her earlier catty question. "Is it recent?"

"It happened in potions this morning," another of the girls answered.

"How awful!" Hermione transformed the smile tugging at her lips into a worried frown and moved to gather her books and bag. "I need to go and see him right away!"

The girls looked more confused than usual.

_Demolly _crossed her arms and shot Hermione a sour look. "I thought you weren't talking to any of them."

"Nonsense," Hermione scoffed. "We're all the _best_ of friends."

. . . . .

"_Come now, Mister Avery, just one more draught."_

"_But they're so __**bitter**__!"_

"_Yes, yes, I know, but just the one more then I'll leave you to rest."_

Hermione heard what she could only assume was Elliot Avery's incessant whinging from her spot behind the privacy drape around an empty cot. She'd left Ravenclaw tower not long ago but had every intention of having a nice, long discussion with the unpleasant, lanky gentleman while he was free of Tom Riddle's protective umbrella. If she could just get some sort of hint as to what happened over the summer she could more accurately regulate events back to where they needed to be. Elliot Avery would not have been her first choice – for what did he know, _really_ – but she would take what she could get at that point. Opting to wait for the absolute right time, Hermione disillusioned herself, snuck in, and was currently sitting cross-legged on the cot waiting for the older witch to retreat back into the other room.

"_There—was that so bad then?"_

"_Absolutely, it was!"_

The Mediwitch chuckled and Hermione heard the sound of glass being set carefully upon a nightstand followed by the rustling of covers.

"_That one will relax your muscles some and get you some much needed rest. Don't you worry about a thing, Mister Avery, you'll be good as new in the morning."_

Hermione heard another of his disgruntled mumbles and rolled her eyes – even to the faculty the boy was _rude._ She waited a few beats until the Mediwitch's footsteps passed her spot, heading into the office off to the side of the front foyer. She allowed another handful to pass until she was sure the woman was gone and occupied before finally slipping off the cot and out from behind the curtain. With a few minute gestures of her wand, she silenced her footsteps and approached what she knew to be Avery's bedside. The Mediwitch had half pulled a drape around the boy and Hermione took a minute to appreciate those moments when things actually worked out. Smiling to herself, she cast a spell to also silence the area around Avery's cot before padding behind the curtain and removing her disillusionment.

Elliot Avery's mouth came open, presumably to shout something fowl at her, but Hermione batted the movement away with a lazy flick of her wand, clamping his jaws forcibly shut. Reflexively, he then tried to sit up but between the potion weighing down his muscles and another press of magical force rooting him in place, all he could do was look up at the petite girl to his left who was smirking down at him, unkindly.

Hermione savored the look on Avery's face. She watched his eyes go huge and round and the rise and fall of his chest pick up like a terrified rodent when she seated herself on a small open space on the cot.

"Imagine my surprise," she started without preamble, "when I heard tale of your accident." Hermione swirled the tip of her wand atop the sheet that covered Avery's abdomen; watched him try to flinch away. "I knew I had to come and visit."

A strangled noise leaked from between his clenched teeth and Hermione watched him wriggle with what little fight he had between his potions and her spells.

"First, however…I would like to remedy something that has been bothering me since our rather…unfortunate collision in Diagon. I believe we've started the year off on the wrong foot, Mister Avery. I propose that we begin anew."

Avery felt her wand tip drag up his stomach, to his chest, to his neck where it hovered and his pulse hammered frantically against it.

"Allow me to formally introduce myself…"

Her wand trailed further up, sliding over his chin and cheek. Avery's eyes grew impossibly wider, rolling in their sockets as he fought and struggled against the weight of her magic.

"My name is Persephone Callaghan."

That cool press of wood slithered higher still, eventually coming to rest at his temple. Avery felt something spark there between her wand and his head, a simple buzzing of electricity that was swiftly growing, intensifying as the seconds passed. He felt a lick of energy, a sound like a clap of thunder at his head, and shortly thereafter the pain began.

"Pleased to make your acquaintance."


	22. Chapter 21 - Smitten (Book II)

**21 – Smitten**

October 1943

A thick tome landed with a dull thud on the table Persephone was occupying and a presence caused her to look up from her text.

"Mister Riddle," she greeted him with a light smile.

"Miss Callaghan," he replied tightly. "This is the restricted section."

Persephone blinked a long, slow blink. "It is." She then pointed to herself. "Woman." Pointed at him. "Man." Pointed to her book. "Tome." And finally she gestured around them in a wide, sweeping motion. "Library." Turning her attention back to her reading, she muttered, "Now that we're all acquainted with 'what things are' I have some research to do, if you'll excuse me."

The witch was only a few lines in before he reached over and slammed the book shut. Her eyes were still open, looking at the spot where the words were just seconds ago, and he could feel her irritation steadily surfacing on the air between them.

"This is the restricted section, Callaghan," he said again. "I do not believe you have permission to be here, touching these most coveted treasures with your filthy Mudblood hands!"

Persephone scoffed indelicately. "Really?" She sat back to look at him and yanked the book from beneath his fingertips sharply. "You are such a hypocrite." The girl pushed to her feet and padded the few steps down the aisle to find the book's home once more. "Do your minions know, Tom? Have you told them yet? You DO remember what you are, don't you? Or," she paused to give him a pointed look, "did your little visit with daddy addle your brain?"

He sneered openly at her, watching every move with a heated, hungry stare. "You're testing my patience, Persephone," he snapped, though the name on his tongue did puzzling things to his insides. "I exterminated the filthy Muggle. I rid the world of the savage thing he was! He was just an unfortunate blemish in the family line, his blood within me is insignificant! I remain the last surviving heir of Salazar Slytherin himself and I won't let a tricky little Mudblood witch like you attempt to bewitch and bewilder me! I am not like my father, Persephone!"

"You're absolutely right, Tom, **YOU **are a foolish BOY!" Persephone hissed. "After all I have done to show you—after all the WORK I have put in to be here-to GET here! You spend ONE bloody summer slaughtering your Muggle father and you fall back into your juvenile preoccupations!"

The curly haired witch rolled her eyes and reached towards the tall shelf to return her tome, pushing to stand on her toes trying to replace it. He closed the distance in only a few quick strides and her lids fluttered shut when he pressed himself along the length of her backside. One of his hands fastened itself to her hip and the other took the book from her reaching arm to place it easily into the empty spot.

His lips were at her ear and he found himself growling huskily into it. "You don't belong here," he snarled. "You, your kind…not one bit. In this section playing with these dark things, traipsing around in my head with your enchantments, or even in this school!" His grip tightened on her hipbone and the fingers of their others intertwined as he pressed snugly to her bum. His mouth moved down along her throat of its own mind, his nose burying itself into the crook of her neck and shoulder, into the fall of her hair; she smelled of parchment, ink, irises, and darkness, darkness that smelled of electricity and blood and everything that made his heart thud against his ribcage and want to erupt out of his breast. "You," he murmured, "your people, my father's people…they are ants Miss Callaghan. Ants that are well on their way to exterminating themselves and need nothing but a little nudge in the right direction."

"Your people too, Riddle," she pressed seriously, but her words turned into a gasp with the sharp snap of his hips to hers. He rocked against her there and Persephone bit back a moan even as she widened her stance to enjoy just that little bit more of him.

"I'll cut out your tongue if you mention it again," he snarled and flipped her around so her back was pressed to the shelves instead. The hand that was previously at her hip was now clamped around her throat and her other arm was pinned at the wrist.

Persephone held his hazy glare with a hooded look of her own that spoke of her amusement and no shortage of mockery. He'd seen this look many times on her and he still couldn't decide if he favored it or detested it. She smirked in that cold yet dangerous manner that ignited the strange glow within her eyes and his ponderings were cut short as he lost himself to their depths.

Before he had a chance to speak again, he realized that she'd produced her wand from somewhere and had it pressed to a very dangerous place at the base of his neck. There was an entire world of things the witch could do to him in that position with just a muttering of a word. He already knew what the woman was capable of but the heated tip of her wand burrowing into the meat of his neck served as a wonderful reminder in those few tense moments.

Salazar, she was amazing.

"Ants, Mister Riddle," Persephone purred, "The funny thing about ants is it only takes one. Only one to mark the path. Only one to lead the group. Only one to pave the way. As long as there is the one, the rest will find a way."

His grip at her neck twitched but loosened at the dragging tickle of her wandpoint down his spine. "Hence the extermination part."

She laughed.

Her laugh did those funny things to his stomach again. He wanted to wrap himself in it and revel in its warmth and delight. He wanted her to make that sound always…whenever she was not crying out for him in passion.

Persephone leaned in as closely as she could in his custody, her nose almost brushing his. "Only **one**, Tom," she said again. "What happens when you find the one that you can't stop?"

Her eyes scanned over his face and caught him staring hard at her lips; she licked them. His heated gaze snapped back up to hers, angry and hungry.

"What happens when you find the one that is too powerful for extinction? The one that is too powerful to buckle under the strain. She won't be stopped. She won't be killed. She will just become exceedingly angrier as you try." She moved again to trail butterfly soft kisses up his jawline until she was at his ear, the lobe finding its way intermittently between her teeth.

He groaned.

"She?" He had his nose buried in her hair once more to inhale the tantalizing scent of her. Power leaked from every one of her pores as though she, herself, was an encyclopedia of dark magic – it was the most glorious aroma he had ever experienced.

"There is always a 'she', Tom."

Persephone traced the tip of her tongue along the shell of his ear and he slammed her back into the books. When no one came to investigate the ruckus, she seemed to realize that he had silenced the area upon his arrival; a wicked smile found its way to her features.

"Behind every powerful man is a great woman. Cities rise and fall at the whim of a 'she.' People pillage and plunder and kill at the behest of that 'she.'" She trailed the tip of her wand up into the thick layers of his hair and purred, "Men go to war for that 'she.' There is _always_ a 'she.' And the sooner that you realize that, the sooner you and I will come to an… understanding."

"Never, not with you." The words lashed out harshly but his tone was low and thick and the way he still pressed so tightly to her lower body said otherwise.

This bloody witch…

She laughed again and he felt his resolve dissolving rapidly.

"Are you so certain you would hate it so much?"

Persephone caught his eyes and she opened her mind to him, opening and closing doors inside of it as she guided him along a path of achievements and pleasures. This particular jaunt ended with the image of his older self on a veritable throne with her at his side, threading her arm through his with that dark amusement in her gaze. A trickle of her dulcet laughter soothed over his senses as he snarled and twisted his wand before them, a faceless follower bending and writhing in pain at their feet until it looked as if the sod was nearly about to break in half. Somehow, he knew that he – or at least that version of himself – was doing it for her pleasure, perhaps her _honor._ What's more: he enjoyed it. _Greatly._

He came out of her mind with a start, breathing heavily, panting, and looking at the witch nestled between himself and the shelves with a predatory light to his eyes. Both of his hands were at her hips now, holding her fiercely and her fingers tangled intimately in his hair.

Her chest was heaving and she pressed her forehead to his, panting on the same shared breath. "Do not allow these mundane chains to-"

He cut her off with his lips on hers and any other smart remarks she'd queued dissolved into a series of muffled moans. It had been too long since he'd touched her like this…too long since he'd had her…too long since he—

. . .

The alarm on Tom's wand was loudly alerting him that it was now time to wake up. At the sound of the enchantment, he shot upright in his bed, eyes snapping open wide and darting around the dark space within his curtained four-poster. It took him a handful of seconds to regain his bearings, to replay what, he guessed, had been a rather…realistic fantasy.

It took Tom another handful of seconds to recognize the moisture saturating the front of his pants and he sneered. Rubbing his hands over his face, he groaned in disgust.

"Bloody _witch_," Tom growled, vowing to himself that he would find out precisely what enchantment Persephone had used to dominate his mind with near constant thoughts of the infuriatingly smug witch.

. . . . .

Where Tom had previously filled much of his time with reading the dark tome Persephone had gifted him from cover to cover and back, he found the matter of removing whatever charm or curse she'd used on him a much more pressing issue. He simply could _not_ concentrate on anything he'd set out to do with the lingering thoughts of _her_ coming to mind at any given moment. Though he'd spent some time in the library that mid-morning, after waking from that horrid dream that day, he found the surroundings quite _uncomfortable._ Ultimately, Tom had had to check out the materials so that he could free himself from the remnants of the fantasy that kept playing over and over the longer he'd sat near one of their old private nooks.

At present, he glowered down at the brew he was working on, Slughorn's voice droning on at another table somewhere across the room while he tried very hard to get through this stretch of double potions so that he could resume his reading. Plucking his final ingredient from the cutting board in front of him, Tom dropped the handful of rose thorns into the liquid. As they hit the surface, they puffed and crackled, sending a hum of electricity through the air in a not wholly unpleasant fashion. His thoughts instantly drew the memory of Persephone's dark magic stroking across his skin to mind and Tom sneered, reaching for the cauldron lid to slam onto the simmering potion.

"_Oh, I'm so glad you were able to stop in, Miss Callaghan!"_

He swore he smelled the damned witch before he even saw her – _parchment, power, and irises._ Tom turned, still scowling, to see Professor Slughorn, distracted from his mini-lecture all puffed up and preening in the presence of Persephone.

"_Of course, Professor! I apologize that I was unable to come by any earlier, but this was my first free period. What is it you needed of me, sir?"_

The sound of her voice struck chords in him that he would have preferred remain untouched and, as though the portly professor felt him staring, Tom watched with a fraction of dismay as the pair of them both turned in his direction.

"Tom!" Slughorn beckoned with a wide smile, one hand curled around a lapel while the other waved him over. "Tom, my boy! A moment?"

Tom concentrated on turning the foul look that he knew was plastered clearly across his face into something more socially palatable and ended up with a tight, strained smile. He nodded, not quite trusting his voice, and made his way over to stand as far from Persephone as he could muster without being too obviously disrespectful. "Yes, Professor?"

Professor Slughorn's eyes glittered, his stare darting back and forth between the two of them with the joyful glee of a man who was utterly oblivious to the two of them being on the outs. "Ah," he said in a sigh, "My two _best_ students." The man released the edge of his robes to clap one hand on each of their shoulders looking as proud as a new father. "It is quite a shame that they were unable to make an arrangement again like last year for you, dear Persephone. You and Tom made such _wonderful_ brewing partners! It was always so enrapturing to watch!"

Hermione stared at her professor, allowing herself a somewhat unfriendly sidelong glance at Tom. "Yes." She sighed dramatically. "It is such a shame. Why, it's as though we hardly see each other anymore." Tom looked at her and she could see the muscles in his jaw working as he contained whatever ill response he had on the tip of his tongue. "It's almost like we haven't spoken in weeks."

Slughorn gave their shoulders each a little squeeze, rocking back on his heels with a hearty chuckle. "Fret not, Miss Callaghan! We're all still settling back into classes but once all the hustle and bustle calms back down into routine, I'm sure you both will find the time you need to reacquaint yourselves." He broke his hold on both students only to give Tom an extra nudge of his elbow. "Isn't that right, Tom?"

Still holding Persephone's stare, Tom took a few calming breaths, thankful when her heady fragrance did not invade his senses this time. Lips still pressed firmly together, he ran his tongue along his top front teeth in agitation before turning his best bashful smile up towards the other man. "Please, Professor, is that topic—er_-appropriate_ in mixed company?"

The older wizard chortled but nodded. "Quite right you are, Tom, quite right. My apologies, Miss Callaghan, I'd not intended to be rude! I forget myself sometimes." Shaking his head, he reached into the folds of his robes to produce a small neatly folded piece of parchment, sealed shut with pressed wax. "I'll not keep either of you much longer, but I wanted to be sure you had ample notice! I'll be holding a Halloween Masque this year instead of my usual Slug Club event and you both are invited, of course. I understand there is still one Hogsmeade trip before then in case either of you need to—well, you know," he said, gesturing towards his face and attire. "No other plans, I hope?"

Tom felt his eyes widen at the thought of being in such close proximity to the witch while still in his current 'condition', and his objection was in his throat and on his tongue in an instant. He'd just opened his mouth when that sweet, melodic voice at his side spoke.

"_Other_ plans?" Hermione laughed charmingly and tugged the invitation from Slughorn's grasp in one fluid motion. She popped the seal and scanned the scribbled formality before smiling cheekily in Tom's direction. "Don't be silly, Professor. I'm so flattered to be included in your first celebration of the school year! Of course there are no other plans."

"Splendid!" Slughorn beamed, taking her answer for the both of them and completely missing the way Tom's mouth gaped like that of a fish.

Hermione watched Tom's neck turn a few different shades of red before turning back to Slughorn with a small dip of her head. "Thank you again, Professor, for the invitation. I hate to be rude but I really must start preparing for next period."

"Oh!" Slughorn patted his pockets in search of his pocket watch, hooking his fingers around the chain once he found it and eyed the little hands as they ticked along. His shoulders fell in a relieved sigh and he nodded at her. "Not rude at all, Miss Callaghan. You should have ample time to make your way to, ah, where is it you're going?"

"Charms, sir."

"Ah-_charms._ Yes, there should be plenty of time to get you there." Slughorn paused and his face lit up with what he thought was a most fabulous idea. "Tom," he chirped, "have you finished your last potion?"

Not liking where that sentence was going at all, Tom slowly turned back to his professor, eyes narrowed, and said, "Yes—" The single syllable was drawn out with obvious caution.

"Wonderful!" Professor Slughorn clapped him on the back and nodded at Persephone. "Perhaps you can escort Miss Callaghan to her next class?"

_No,_ he thought with so much venom and building rage that he was surprised his eyes didn't pop straight out of his skull. That Tom managed another polite smile was a miracle. "But, Professor Slughorn, sir, I've still got to bottle the solution. And besides, next period doesn't start for at least another twenty minutes. I wouldn't want to impose—"

Slughorn waved Tom's argument away gallantly, puffing out his chest and grinning ear to ear. "Not an imposition at all, dear boy! I'll bottle it up, not a problem, no sense in keeping you here in boredom when you have _better_ places to be, eh Tom?" He nudged the boy again, unaware of the intense glare that was being shot his way. Taking hold of his lapels once more, Slughorn nodded and grinned proudly.

The silence between the three of them while Tom mulled over his response was deafening.

"Of course…_sir,_" Tom said at last, pointedly ignoring the smug look he could _feel_ pounding into the side of his head from the witch nearby. That he was able to leave her presence, collect his belongings, and then return to offer her his arm without blowing something up was yet another miracle. "Come, Persephone," he said tightly, releasing a shaky exhale when he felt her hand curl around his bicep.

Slughorn watched with that lopsided grin still plastered on his face as his two favorite students exited his classroom. Immensely pleased with himself, he waited until they were entirely out of sight before he went about humming and gathering some vials to use to gather Tom's potion. With a flick of his wand, he doused the burner, eyes watching the spiral of steam curling up from the only partially covered brew. Taking up a thick rag, Slughorn peeled the cauldron lid the rest of the way off, smiled merrily down at the glistening mother-of-pearl sheen of the potion, and inhaled. The smell of an assortment of rare, exotic potions ingredients filled his senses and Professor Slughorn released his breath in a contented sigh.

"_Perfect."_

. . . . .

He had _not_ escorted Persephone Callaghan _anywhere_.

Tom had walked arm in arm with the tricky little witch in a mutual silence only to the edge of the dungeon stairwell at which point he jerked away from her and her stupid smirking face. In a single sharp movement, he snatched the invitation to Slughorn's party from her and practically snarled. "If you think for one moment, Callaghan, that I will be attending this idiot debacle with the likes of you, you are _sorely_ mistaken!"

Hermione snorted. "And what makes you think I would be going anywhere with _you_?"

His harsh glare faltered. "What? What do you mean?"

"The invitation is a simple plus one," she said, plucking the parchment back and turning it around so he could see. "It says nothing about _who_ my plus one has to be."

Tom blinked at her dumbly. "Wh-but—"

"_Honestly, _Tom. Do you actually think you're the only boy in school?"

She made her way up the staircase, presumably towards her next class, leaving him standing there alone with the darkest glower he could possibly produce.

Tom spent that evening at dinner rabidly researching his borrowed tomes, only pausing for the occasional bite of food and a glance here or there at the Hufflepuff table where Persephone laughed and joked with that Pettigrew boy.

. . . . .

Tailoring a Pettigrew to her needs had not been on the agenda until her following school year, but days ago, in light of everything else having gone tits up, Hermione had chosen to pursue the opportunity that had presented itself instead of making herself crazy – crazi_er_. It was for that reason that Hermione chewed dully as she sat across from Lawrence at the dinner table and listened to him babble. She blinked, chewed, made a smattering of half-hearted encouraging noises when he would pause to seek her input, and then blinked some more while he went on, in detail, about some girl in Gryffindor – _Hazel? –_ and her apparently brilliant potions skills. And her apparently brilliant transfiguration skills. And her apparently brilliant _everything._

While, at the time, Hermione had not known why Lawrence Pettigrew had approached her in their herbology class, she'd assumed – correctly – that it had been because she was a girl. When the explanation – one that he managed to fumble and muck up in a most gloriously awkward and ungraceful fashion – came that he'd seen her a bit the year before, seen her with 'that Slytherin bloke, Tom Riddle,' and had wanted to know how she did it, Hermione was dumbstruck.

Pettigrew wanted cross-house _relationship_ advice. From _her._

She'd barely managed to not laugh herself out of oxygen when she found out his purpose.

Once she had time to think on it though, Hermione conceded the fact that, in that time, interactions between houses were few and far between outside of the forced classes and communal mealtimes. If possible, the groups of students were far more siloed than they were in her original time. Pettigrew had also politely mentioned that the fact that she'd so blatantly sat with the Slytherins, with _Tom_ more specifically, was a bit of an anomaly. There were certainly cross-house admirers, because of course there were, but the fact that anyone so boldly acted upon it in a regular manner, and in full view of the entire student body… well, Hermione had learned that apparently more than just the Ravenclaw students had thought that Persephone Callaghan was _odd_.

_At least some things haven't changed,_ Hermione thought to herself as Pettigrew continued on about Hazel while she chewed some roast.

Lawrence sighed heavily, chasing some peas around his plate with a fork looking sullenly at the dish. "I just don't know what to do, Poppy."

Hermione flinched at the name and a mental picture of a docile Ruthie giving her a hug and kiss goodbye on the train platform pressed invasively into her thoughts. She rubbed at the bracelet the woman had given her, thumb tracing over the shaped metal petals of the poppy flower with a frown.

Taking her extra stretch of silence to wallow, Lawrence sighed again. "Hazel'll never want a tosser like me."

"Well, of course she won't," she snapped in irritation. His head came up, his eyes wide and stricken at her agreement and she remembered herself. Hermione cleared her throat and dredged a patronizing smile to the surface. "Lawrence," she said more kindly, reaching across the table to rest a hand over one of his, "you're going about it wrong."

"Wrong?"

She nodded. "You want her to notice you, right?"

Lawrence's mouth settled into a tight line and he nodded.

"Well then you can't go on moping about and being _yourself._ She's a _**Gryffindor**_ for Merlin's sake!" Hermione leaned in, looked stealthily at the Gryffindor table where a crop of them were laughing jovially, some of the loudest in the entirety of the Great Hall with whatever topic was encouraging their boisterous behavior, then returned her gaze to him. "I know I've not been here long, but it's obvious what that lot values and it most certainly isn't a moping Hufflepuff." Her words were full of persuasive confidence and she could see the boy working through the complete opposite bit of advice he'd somehow expected to receive.

He rolled her suggestion over in his mind for several moments, brow furrowing as he processed each and every syllable. "So…you…you don't think I should just—"

"—be yourself?" Hermione finished for him with a barely perceptible mockery in her tone, watching as his cheeks darkened in embarrassment and his gaze shifted back to his plate. She took the opportunity to adjust her grip so she was holding his hand and raised it to clasp it between both of hers. "All I'm saying is…perhaps she's looking for someone a bit more…bold...a bit more _daring._ If you _want_ the girl, Lawrence," Hermione purred, leaning in further, dipping her head to catch his averted gaze once more, "you have to earn her. And that might just mean you have to…come outside of your comfort zone a touch."

Lawrence swallowed, staring deeply into Persephone's eyes. Holding her stare was like falling into an ocean, limitless as far as the eye could see. Though there was nothing apparently remarkable about those deep brown eyes-it simply felt as if there was a current beneath the surface, moving, shifting, _churning_. He found it nearly impossible to look away.

Nodding again, he said, "Yeah." And then more firmly, "_Yeah._ You're right!" Lawrence straightened, dropped the fork he held in his other hand and curled it around her much smaller ones, beaming. "I'm gonna get the girl!"

It was around the time of his proclamation that a series of shadows stretched across the table where Persephone and Lawrence both sat. They originated from her side of the table and, as such, Lawrence was the first to notice their owners.

"Can I help you gents?" he asked, still smiling over his newly laid plan for courting his Gryffindor Princess and entirely clueless to the meaning of the look he was receiving from the one and only Tom Riddle.

Hermione turned her head to look over her shoulder, not hiding her surprise at the sight of Tom with a couple of his cronies in tow. She frowned, noting that he was still containing himself, suppressing the essence of his magic from her. "Tom," she said, looked to his right, "Abraxas," and then to his left with a barely restrained smile, "and _Mister Avery._ Greetings gentlemen." Her eyes never left the recently recovered Elliot Avery who was sneering fiercely in her direction. "What brings you?"

Tom had not wholly removed his glare from Lawrence Pettigrew, sending it instead to focus on where his and Persephone's hands were clasped upon the tabletop. "A word, Miss Callaghan?" he said tightly. "Privately?"

That did manage to pull her attention away from the tall young man who'd begun sweating under her stare for some reason he didn't appear to be able to place. Hermione quirked a brow at Tom Riddle, shrugged, and then extracted her hands from Lawrence's so she could take up her bag and books. To Lawrence she smiled and said, "Remember what I said."

Leaving a confused Pettigrew in their wake, Tom led all four of them to the same abandoned classroom that he and Persephone had dueled in before Myrtle's death; the same abandoned classroom they had crafted his first horcrux in. He'd not returned to it for any reason since the last school year but as he passed the threshold, he felt the shiver of dark magic down his spine. With a sharp glance at Persephone, he could tell she'd felt it too.

"I thought you said 'privately,'" Hermione said blandly, folding her arms and staring at the two other boys that were still in the room.

"S'private enough for the likes of you," Avery remarked saucily, earning him a flabbergasted look from Abraxas and a halting gesture from Tom.

Her head cocked to the side. "Having trouble breaking this one, Tom? He's awfully mouthy still."

"It's none of your concern," Tom bristled – he _was_ a mouthy little shite, though he'd be damned if he'd admit that his time had been spent on other tasks that left Avery still lolling in his perceived playroom of authority. "However, he is not wrong. This is a sufficient setting for what I've to discuss with you."

Hermione scoffed and rolled her eyes. "Over a_ month_ until today and NOW you—" She forced herself to take a deep, calming breath before continuing, "_—fine._ Go on, then."

Tom's eyes narrowed suspiciously at her lack of resistance on the issue. She, seemingly bored, began to pace in a half-hearted, wide circle and as a precaution, he extracted his wand from his jacket pocket. At the sight of it, both Abraxas and Avery armed themselves as well. Only when she made no move to follow suit, did Tom begin. "You owe me explanations, Callaghan."

"Explanations?" She shrugged, continuing her pacing in a path circling closer to where Avery stood. "I'm fairly certain that I've nothing to _'explain'_ to you…that is, unless you are seeking tutoring in some of your courses. If that's the case then I can—"

"You _**know **_what I am referring to!" Tom snapped, tightening his grip on his wand though he still stayed his hand even if he did, perhaps, shift to keep several paces between the two of them. Arms still folded, she refrained from looking at him, instead quite focused on Elliot who was scowling terribly at the small witch. "You will tell me precisely _which_ charm it was and how to reverse it and you will tell me _**now **_or the punishment will be…severe." Persephone glanced over at him from where she stood, an honest look of confusion on her face at his demand.

"Charm?" she asked, puzzled. "I've not cast any _charms._ Well…not outside of class, anyway." Hermione turned her attention back to Avery where he towered over her and smiled at the boy who was bestowing her with a look so venomous he truly lived up to the Slytherin crest. "Unless you mean…this?" She, innocently enough, reached out and placed just the tips of her fingers on Avery's cheek.

Avery, tall, lanky individual that he was, sneered down from an impressive height at Persephone. That lasted for all of merely a second after her skin touched his before he'd gone pale and a sickening chill spread through each of his limbs. It felt like a series of doors and boxes that guarded his most wretchedly unpleasant memories were all flying open the moment he sensed her touch.

Tom and Abraxas stared, wide eyed and slack jawed, as Elliot Avery crumpled. A desperate, hoarse pleading cry leaked through Avery's clenched teeth as his hands scrabbled at his head and hair and scalp, trying to tear something from his skull as if it would ease his mind. The boy whimpered, shivered, shuddered under the delicate press of Persephone Callaghan's fingers and though both Tom and Abraxas were sufficiently armed, they were far too stunned at the spectacle to move.

"Sensory memories," Hermione said lowly, the tremor of darkness only Tom had been privy to before coloring her words, "are a hair more difficult to _obliviate_ at times than the simple memory of the occurrence itself_._ Much easier to leave them, wouldn't you agree?_"_

Tom blinked from the crying boy at her feet back up into Persephone's haughty face and he licked his lips hungrily. Trying to remember himself, his purpose for taking her aside and his objective of the evening, Tom swallowed. He cleared his throat.

And in a strained voice that was an octave lower than it typically was, said to Abraxas, "_Leave._ And take the whelp with you. Persephone and I have something to discuss alone."

Hermione snorted, watching Malfoy scramble in utter fear and confusion with his cohort, trying to make a hasty exit while dragging the blubbering boy along.

The door barely shut before Tom had finally managed to point his wand at her, noting offhandedly that she'd found hers just as swiftly. "I _knew_ he'd been off since he returned from the hospital wing!"

She shrugged at the accusatory tone, giving him a little smirk. "I dislike rude individuals."

"And _**I**_ dislike when people touch my _things,_" Tom said heatedly and flung a spell that sparked her way.

Hermione deflected the blast easily, dropping her pack off her shoulder and focusing all of her attention on him as they began to circle one another. He lashed out at her again and she deflected another crackling blast. "You should learn not to leave them lying about all broken, then," she purred. "And besides—" Taking an opening shot, Hermione slashed a motion between them that sent a blast of cutting air in his direction. The spell hammered uselessly against his shield and she grinned. "—I returned him _much _better than how I'd found him."

Tom inhaled another steadying breath through his nose, ignoring how snugly his trousers were fitting through the hip, and conceded her point if only to himself. He sent another set of spells her way, none of which found purchase on her petite frame. Between the discomfort of his arousal and the current stalemate of their duel, Tom was _**frustrated.**_

He growled at her, a red gleam coming into his glare, "What did you do to me?!"

"What the bloody hell are you _talking _about?!" She snapped back.

"What-did-you-_**DO**_?!"

Hermione dodged another blast of magic, then another, and _another_ as he sent a series of furious spells in her direction with every one of his breaths. She danced around them like some sort of nymph as she tried to wrap her head around the nonsensical question. Distracted by the sheer oddity of it, she finally took a scrape to the side of one of her legs from some debris and it was all the opening that Tom needed. With another flash of several more spells, she was quickly losing ground to his attacks. While she managed to avoid any more damage, Hermione found herself back in the center of the room with Tom Riddle, wandpoint to wandpoint, both breathing heavily at the exchange.

She, very threateningly, shoved her wand more firmly into the side of his neck, earning her a matched response and Hermione snarled at him. "I'm afraid you'll have to be a bit more forthcoming with your meaning, Tom, because I _don't_—"

And then he kissed her.

Tom Riddle was kissing her.

No, scratch that, he was practically devouring her.

Hermione's wand arm slackened a bit, her eyelids fluttered shut, eyes rolling back in the pleasure of Tom Riddle's ferociously hungry lips and tongue. For the first time since they'd parted ways before the summer she felt the sensation of his power licking over her skin and it was _beyond_ heavenly. He'd kept it locked away from her and the flood of it being released all at once was enough to make her groan into his mouth and swoon in his embrace. The hand that had been previously wadded in his shirt slid into his hair and tangled in the wavy strands while both of his settled on her hips to lead her in a grind against him.

Hermione felt her magic twine with his, electrifying the space around them as it had when he'd abandoned all sense and had practically rutted against her post-horcrux creation. He sounded delicious when he rumbled against her, biting and teething the meat of her lip, and he tasted divine. Her thoughts went fuzzy, overheated and overloaded by the feel of him, of his touches, of his power, hot and hard and familiar. She was losing herself in the caress of his hands and magic and it was almost as though he hadn't been dodging her for the past month and change.

_Almost._

Tom's kisses were indeed ferocious, but they were also feverish and _off._

Where Hermione had been used to how, even at the height of excitement, his touches managed to be languorous, basking in her essence, these were harsh and rough and frantic. His teeth gnashed instead of nibbled and his fingers were just shy of bruising where they dug into her hips. Hermione started to pull away-the hand that had held him at wandpoint before trying to nudge some distance between them, but he did not budge; he was so caught up in his amorous advances that he did not even appear to notice. Instead, he raked a hand up her back and into her mess of hair, gripping the strands while he practically attacked her mouth with a renewed fervor.

_No_.Her eyes squinched shut.

It wasn't like before.

It wasn't like his careful touches in the library.

It wasn't even like his heated advances while in the thrall of the dark binding magic of his horcrux.

There was something desperate and animalistic in him in those moments and everything about it ripped down the walls she'd built around her most loathed memories. Walls that she had only – '_Foolishly!'_ _a voice in her head hissed – _recently allowed this boy to brush against where she'd willingly allowed no other. Walls that had become so fragile in those hands; those hands that now pinched unpleasantly and tugged too sharply on her hair.

Hermione's eyes snapped open in a moment of panic brought on by her wavering ability to keep those fragile walls in place, and without thought her knee came up to plow into his groin in one smooth savage movement. Tom went down to his knees unceremoniously, clutching at his jewels and looking as though he were about to either vomit or pass out.

Cheeks ruddy with embarrassment at her lapse of self, Hermione swiped the back of her arm across her mouth and leveled her wand at him, her aim wavering from anger directed at both him and herself. "I am _**NOT **_some sort of simpering bitch you can just leave or take whenever you please, Tom Riddle!" she yelled, a quiver to her voice. "We are equals or we are _**nothing**_\- THAT was our deal! You will honour it or the next time you touch me so boldly, I will cut your prick off and shove it down your own throat!" Swallowing down something that felt suspiciously like hurt, she snatched up her things and made to flee his presence. Stopping at the door, Hermione turned around and hissed, "And I don't know what bloody _**charm**_ you keep blabbering about, you fucking sod!"

Tom's only response to the loud, indignant slamming of the classroom door as he fell to his side clutching his privates was an undignified gagging noise punctuated by a series of hoarse groans.

. . . . .

Hermione's hands shook in her efforts to cup enough water in her palms to splash upon her face. She'd silenced the lavatory right as she'd entered, warding it in her haste for some privacy, and was now trying to compose herself.

"Didn't mean it," she mumbled to herself. "Didn't—he didn't—he didn't—should have just asked him to stop." Hermione trembled, memory after memory from years past slipping through each of her defenses as if they were nothing more than a sieve. "Why didn't I just ask?" she hissed at herself angrily. "Would've stopped—Tom would've—" The water slid through her fingers once again and she cried out in frustration, slamming her palms onto the rim of the sink with enough force that her skin went numb for a second from the impact before a stinging pain bloomed in its wake. _**"FUCK!"**_ she snarled at her reflection in the mirror.

And her reflection glared back.

It was her own face: tear stricken, red eyed, puffy, lips swollen from kisses and bites, but it wasn't _her_ that answered.

"_Pathetic."_ The voice, that familiar, older version of _her_ voice practically spat the word.

"No," Hermione rasped and shut her eyes.

"_What was I thinking sending you here as if you'd be able to carry out my will?"_

"I _**can!**_ Setback—just a setback—"

"_Mucking everything up."_

"No—"

That only served to make the taunting words louder. _"Mistress was right. . ."_

"NO."

"_**Rodolphus**__ was right. You really __**are**__ only good for the one thing. . ."_

Hermione flinched at the name. She could taste the salt in her tears and she shut her eyes even more tightly against them as though it would make it stop. **"NO!"**

"_Really? Let's ask young Mister Riddle about it, shall we?"_

"Shut up," Hermione growled, reopening her eyes to face the taunting face in the glass.

Her reflection laughed.

"Shut. **UP**," she said again, a darkness beginning to bleed into the whites of her eyes as a rumbling sounded in the pipes around her.

This time the woman cackled, a sound that started out strong and slowly shifted into something ragged and hoarse, something wretched, something _foul_ that belonged to a terrible woman in black that she once knew.

"_**Mudblood WHORE!"**_

The pipes nearest to Hermione groaned, the metal brackets that anchored them to the tile shuddered and shook as a rush of water flooded through them all at once. The faucets around her forcibly opened and scalding hot water burst past the previously sealed taps to pour in high pressurized spurts, filling and overflowing the sinks on an entire wall of the lavatory.

Hermione crumpled to the ground, knees tucked up against her chest as she clapped her hands over her ears to guard against the growing cackles. Water spilled over and down the sides of the nearby sinks, creeping along the stone tiles to puddle around her, burning what bits of skin it touched until it cooled all while she rocked and muttered to herself, _"M'not—not—not—I'm __**not**__—he would stop—make it stop—he'll make you stop—"_ She grit her teeth together, fingers digging into her scalp. _"…we'll make you stop."_

* * *

**A/N:** Just popping in to say thank you to all my readers and supporters. :) E-hearts for everyone!_  
_


	23. Chapter 22 - Names (Book II)

**22 – Names**

October 1943 

It took some time, quite a bit longer than Tom would ever admit to anyone, living or dead, to finally return to the Slytherin dungeons. If, perhaps, he had to stop at the lavatory at least once on the way for fear of being about to heave, well, _he_ would never tell. The sight that greeted him upon finally returning to the dorms, while not wholly surprising, was the last that Tom cared to see.

"Abraxas," Tom intoned hoarsely.

At the sound of the wall sliding open Abraxas had come to his feet. His eyes lingered on Tom just long enough to identify him before he dropped his head and his gaze to his toes and greeted him carefully, "My Lord." When there was no immediate acknowledgement, Abraxas peeked back up and saw him hobbling past the threshold. Hurriedly, he asked, "Are you hurt? May I get you anything? Did the witch—"

"_Enough,_" Tom snapped and waved his hand dismissively at the blond. "I've no patience for your groveling tonight."

Abraxas bowed again though he stole a glance at his master who was shuffling stiffly towards the nearest of the large cushy armchairs. He swallowed, straightened slowly, awkwardly, and took a glance everywhere but directly at Tom Riddle as the chair's leather cushions creaked and groaned noisily while he eased himself into their embrace. The sound filled the otherwise silent common room for several seemingly long moments before Abraxas, feeling almost as though Tom had forgotten he was even there, cleared his throat softly.

Tom's head ticked up at the noise and he peered at Abraxas through the fingers of one hand that had come to cradle his face while he massaged at some painful points on his forehead. "Yes?" From the way the boy flinched at the single word, his irritation was _more_ than clear.

Eyes focused on his toes again, Abraxas stammered, "Apologies, my Lord-" He winced at the title, remembering the earlier command. "-I just—you haven't—"

"I haven't _what_?"

Abraxas flinched again. "Haven'ttoldmeIcouldgo," he blurted in a rush.

Still looking at him from between his fingers, Tom's eyes narrowed. _**"Leave."**_

With several more sputtered apologies and more bowing, Abraxas scurried from the common room to leave Tom with his thoughts. Glaring in the direction of the boys' dormitories for a long moment, Tom finally loosed a heavy sigh, slouched further into the armchair and allowed his head to drop back onto it. His eyes focused and unfocused intermittently on the ceiling, shifting from one point of interest to another of their own accord.

He failed to notice any of it.

All that Tom could see, replaying repeatedly before him, was that look of panic and fear and shame on the face of Persephone as she fled the room. And all that Tom could feel was a sickening roiling of his gut that had nothing to do with the dulling pain in his groin and everything to do with the fact that _**he**_ was the one responsible for that look.

Tom shut his eyes tightly, pressed the heels of his hands against them until he could see sparks behind his eyelids, and pressed harder still.

He sneered.

He grit his teeth together.

He growled at the still prevalent scene playing over and over and over—

With a snarl, Tom sat forward sharply, grabbed the nearest object to him, and ended up hurling a useless crystal curio clear across the room into the hearth where it exploded with an _almost_ satisfying crash.

Another growl on his lips, Tom deflated, sinking his head into his hands as if any of it could scrub the memory or the feeling away.

"_What have you done to me…"_

. . . . .

_Maddening._

The single word kept hovering in the forefront of his mind whenever he would see, think, or feel anything about Persephone Callaghan.

Despite the fact that, of the two of them, _**he**_ had come away from their most recent encounter significantly more injured, a sickening gurgle churned in his belly whenever his mind wandered and he thought of that fearful look on her face. The more he tried to disregard it, the more he tried to ignore it and smother it down into the deep, dark recesses of his mind where it belonged, the more he wanted to…wanted to just _**fix**_ it.

It had been a few days since their meeting, and despite all of his urges to approach her again, Tom had remained steadfast in his avoidance of the witch. It was decidedly easier in that school year with them having very few classes together; however, the brief times that they were forced to inhabit the same general space, close enough to where he could get a whiff of her familiar scent if he were to just lean slightly this one way – which he most certainly did _not_ do hardly ever – were utterly…

_**Maddening.**_

At times, particularly in Arithmancy where their Professor had a quaint idea of assigned chairs when there were no group projects to participate in, Tom would focus so intently on ignoring the fact that she was only approximately five paces away if he so desired to get up and walk to her bench – which, again, he did _not_ desire in any form of the word – that he would slip into the muddled thoughts of daydreams. Tom was not much of a dreamer, not usually. There were few times that he would ease into a deep enough sleep to have them in the first place, much less have his mind unfocused enough during his wakeful hours to have it drift and wander into the realm of daydreams. He had found, though, that both of these things had been increasing in frequency the longer he insisted on dodging the girl again.

Tom glanced up from his arithmancy scribbles to eye Persephone, studiously scratching away at her own parchment and turned his attention back to his work with a grimace.

That _bloody_ witch, digging her claws into him right under his nose.

_Treacherous little tart._

While what little he knew of her made Tom aware of the threat she posed to his immortality, he felt secure in the addition of the horcrux that he'd made in secret over the summer. And, by the way she'd woven her spells only to enamour him as though he were just some sort of unremarkable adolescent _boy_, he presumed that she'd still not discovered it. Certainly, she was a significant force to reckon with, but she was hardly a force _beyond_ him; after all things were said and done, she _was_ merely a girl, after all…trying to attack him with his own baser urges.

_Who did she honestly think she was dealing with, anyway? _He would not be so manipulated by his emotions; he was _not_ his father.

Having finished his class assignment ages ago, Tom had begun calculations of a personal matter and allowed his eyes to scan over the problems he'd been absently working on. When he looked, he'd expected to be able to map out a plan based on the numbers regarding some later business he had with a bloke and discover when he would be most receptive for the meeting. What Tom _found_ was that the numbers didn't add up at all and, furrowing his brow, he picked everything apart from back to front. It took only a few moments to parse the data but it took him much longer to accept where the error in calculations had been.

With a growing sense of foreboding, Tom scribbled a bit more, eyed the result, frowned, scribbled again, checked it, and then _finally_— after one more attempt at the same problem— he set his quill down quietly, grimace now straining painfully across his face.

Of _course_ the calculations were incorrect.

That was extremely likely to happen, after all, when instead of calculating his contact's receptiveness to conversation he calculated _Persephone Callaghan's_ instead.

_Perhaps_, he thought sourly, _he should have plotted out his disentanglement from Persephone Callaghan a touch more thoroughly than he had in the aftermath of his father's murder._

. . . . .

If she were to say she'd been surprised to see Tom Riddle standing, waiting outside their communal hall for her to arrive, she would have been lying. Still, Hermione saw him and could admit that she was a trifle shocked that he'd only been avoiding her again for a couple of weeks. She expected him to approach her again at some point, what with the way he'd been staring at the side of her head in class the past several days, but she'd not anticipated it to be so soon. After the way they'd last parted ways and the rebuilding of some very tattered mental walls that was required in the aftermath, if he'd been there any sooner she'd likely have dismissed him outright. But, all things considered, the git actually managed to catch her on one of her good days.

_Lucky, that._

"Miss Callaghan," Tom called out as she approached.

Hermione arched a brow, fingers itching for the feel of her wand in hand, but veered slightly off course to meet him at the side of the great doors. "What is it, Tom? Have you grown tired of ignoring me again so soon? I shall consider it a new personal best."

Tom avoided rising to the bait, waiting for her to come closer. When she made no such movement, he glanced around and with a tone of obvious impatience, muttered, "May I have a word? In private?"

"Déjà vu," she said accusingly and he had the decency to drop his gaze for half second. "Fool me once, Tom, shame on you. Fool me twice…"

"This is not some sort of—" he stepped forward, hand reaching for her and even that little twitch of movement made her jerk away. For the briefest of moments, he saw a flicker of that same fear that'd shone on her face so many days ago before it was gone, buried beneath a mask she wrenched into place in the blink of an eye.

A wave of nausea washed over him at even that glimpse.

Fear, pain, misery…had it been painted across any other face, Tom felt with one hundred percent confidence that he would have delighted in its presence. To see it reflected in _hers_, however…

Tom's mouth flattened into a grim line and he dropped both hands, clenching his fists at his sides to keep from trying to touch her again. _"Please."_

The single word looked like it caused him physical pain.

Hermione eyed him suspiciously, squinted even as he continued to stand there appearing as though he was trying his damnedest not to fidget. "Alright," she drew the syllables out in obvious skepticism. When he started to move, though, she added, "Not private…not completely. We can speak in the hallway—" Hermione nodded towards a lower traffic area near the Great Hall. "—just there. There or not at all." She added the last when he looked as though he were about to protest.

Tom clenched his jaw, looked down the hall at her suggested alcove, back at her, and drew in a deep breath. The closer he was to doing this, the harder it felt his heart was hammering against his ribcage. He'd primed himself for this…_discussion_ for days. He would clarify his previous intentions, she would accept his explanation, and images of her looking at him like _that_ would finally cease plaguing his mind.

That look did not suit her, he'd decided. He did _**not**_ care for it. And if the future Dark Lord of all of wizarding Britain did not care for it, she would stop. End of.

"_Fine,"_ Tom said curtly and swept his arm in the direction of their 'discussion nook.'

Hermione decided his behavior was the strangest it had been since she'd arrived. Thus far, she'd dealt with his short temper, his sly plotting, his alluring passion for his goals, and even his strange observation of certain niceties and typical preference for finesse over brutal savagery. But this…_this_ was…she wasn't sure _what_ this was.

They stood there for what seemed a _very_ long time. Tom was looking everywhere but at her and Hermione was staring unflinchingly at his face. She was watching all the different muscles in his neck and jaw twitch and spasm, his nostrils flare and collapse as his breathing changed and stuttered and he seemed to be rifling through a million different places to begin without ever actually _beginning._ Amusing as it was to watch Tom Riddle floundering before her, his proximity with his not-quite fidgeting and zero talking was starting to put her on edge. "So…were you going to say something or were you merely going to breathe at me all evening?"

"You are such a nettlesome _**shrew!"**_ Tom blurted in sudden frustration, both his and Persephone's eyebrows going up at the unexpected outburst.

Hermione's lashes fluttered and she huffed out a noise that was more stunned than disgusted. "_Thank you_, Mister Riddle. This has been a _most_ enlightening discussion. I'll just be heading to dinner now." As she made to leave their alcove, Tom's arm shot out to bar her path, earning him one of her most wicked glares.

"You know me, Persephone."

His conversation started seemingly out of nowhere and Hermione gave him another huff, thoroughly unamused with whatever shite he was spinning. "I am beginning to believe the contrary." She moved again and this time he reached for her. Seeing his hand come into view again, Hermione retreated back into the alcove, away from his grasp and immediately scolded herself for it.

"_Don't-" _Tom choked out past another frustrated noise, withdrawing both hands immediately and making a significant show of stepping out of her space. He continued fumbling for his words and Tom was quite sure that he would remember that day as the day he'd forgotten how to speak. "I did not mean—I did not intend to mishandle you…back at the—that other day."

Hermione blinked at him.

_Mishandle._

She narrowed her eyes. "I'm sorry, Tom, I'm afraid you'll have to be more specific. You think you 'mishandled' me before or after you tried to kill me?"

"After," he answered immediately, followed by a sneer at his own painful awkwardness. "I would never—" Tom's lips twitched in disgust at the unspoken idea. "—_that—_the mishandling—is something that you never have to fear of from me."

"Just the attempted murder, then?" Hermione scoffed. "That's reassuring."

With a frustrated growl at his inability to formulate any of the words he was looking for, he huffed impatiently at her. "For Salazar's sake, just let me _**show**_ you what I am trying to say! I can let you see exactly how I feel on the matter."

_That _offer piqued her interest. Hermione barely refrained from licking her lips, in fact. "Show me?"

_If it would spare me from that look ever again…_ "Yes," Tom said flatly.

Two weeks. It had been just two weeks and it was still too long to have had a taste of his power only to have it all shut away from her again. Having done her own mental quarantine to dampen her dark magical presence from any as sensitive to it as they, Hermione had a sneaking suspicion that his offer to "show" her was not wholly altruistic. Even so, the temptation to have even a fraction of that essence tangled with her own was one that she, begrudgingly, could not pass up. Besides, the screeching of the voices in her head always had tended to quiet when they would have their sessions in the library. Perhaps it would provide her with some extended bouts of peace for which to use to set everything back on track.

"If you try anything…" she hedged, doing her best to tamp down on her excitement.

"Not here." Tom smirked, shook his head and released the tight control he had on his magical shielding. If the way her lashes fluttered and mouth popped open in the tiniest of gasps were any indication, she felt him instantly. He swallowed thickly against a sudden lump in his throat at her reaction and swiftly went about setting up the mental lead that would take her to what he sought to show her.

In the back of his mind, Tom knew that they must have looked odd just standing there in the hallway, him now hovering mere centimetres away. They must have seemed strange with him looming, hands having moved to rest on either side of her head, as he stared down into her eyes and she up into his.  
Somewhere, he knew they looked so-_**very**_-odd together but that somewhere was far and away from wherever he was just then.

Wherever he was, was _not_ where he'd intended to lead her.

Wherever he was, was a place they'd both sunk into as he stood so close to her with her magic—her very _essence_, nuzzling against and coiling around his own.

All he could notice, all that he could see as she tasted him for the first time in too long, was this most perfect vision before him.

She was…older, quite aged, yet he still loomed so much taller. Her skin was paler, taut in some spots, wrinkled in others. Her eyes searched his as they often did and they were as dark as they'd ever been, the whites having deadened into an ash grey, edging on pitch. They were bottomless pits, devoid of real color save for the pair of steadily burning embers that peered at him with a fondness he never knew fire could possess.

Tom _knew_ in the recesses of his mind that they looked so very strange as they were but when such a creature of beauty curled into one's embrace, slipped her arms around your neck, and simply _smiled_ at you with lips shining of red, red blood, you cared not for such trivialities.

His own lips curled in a slow smile devoid of malice and mischief as he passed his knuckles gently across one of her gaunt cheeks. His beauty's breath hummed out of her at his touch causing his chest to grow heavy with a yearning he had no name for. All that he _did_ know in those moments, was that he would rend the sky and earth for an eternity just to hear that hum of pleasure even once more.

In the hall, Tom's head dipped lower, moving ever closer to that previously guarded space around her as he lost himself in that vision. His eyes lidded, glinting a red that neither of them seemed to notice or care about and their noses brushed as he murmured out his own hum of, _"Hermione…"_

Hermione, having been lost to his warmth and mesmerized by the enchanted look in scarlet eyes jolted away at the sound of her name from his lips. Her brows furrowed and the faint image of a monstrous man dissolved before her to leave that of the more familiar teenaged Tom Riddle who, to her embarrassment, was wrapped in her arms and appeared about two seconds from snogging her stupid in the hallway. With a sudden, sharp shove, Hermione sent him reeling back, arms flailing to keep his balance as he stumbled and visually came awake from whatever daze they'd been in. "_What_ did you call me?" she hissed, resisting reaching for her wand.

Tom, still looking confused, shook his head and combed a hand back through his hair. "What?"

"I said—" This time her wand was out and aimed, eyes glancing around to make sure no one was around to see. "—_what_ did you _call_ me?"

At the sight of her weapon, a fog cleared in his gaze and Tom's expression settled into that of a dark glower. "A nettlesome shrew?" he asked tartly.

Hermione glared, grip tightening on her wand as she twisted her wrist in an open threat. "_NO,"_ she snapped but as quickly as she'd been brought to anger, the source behind it was rapidly becoming unclear. Her wand arm wavered and her brows creased together again in befuddlement. "There was…no, there was something else."

Tom scowled at the crooked wand still pointed in his direction. Even though the witch holding it seemed to have lost some of her fire, he still did not appreciate the threat. His "apology" was not going nearly as well as he'd planned it to.

Her arm drooped lower and, looking around once more, Hermione finally let it fall to her side though she kept her wand firmly in hand as she eyed Tom where he was looking perturbed several paces away. "Was THAT what you'd wanted to speak to me about? To tell me?"

He huffed and folded his arms. "Of course not, don't be absurd, Callaghan."

"WHAT then? I'm tired and I'm hungry, Tom, so if you have nothing else to say to me—"

"I was _going_ to ask you to accompany me to the Masque." _What?_

"_**WHAT?"**_

Tom blinked at the air between them as though he would still see the preposterous words hanging there before him. "I…"

Hermione tossed her arms up and loosed a highly disgruntled noise. "You egotistical son of a banshee! Where do you get off—" _Of all the inane, __**preposterous—**_"—of all the things that you _**SHOULD **_have to say to me after two more weeks of your idiotic, juvenile, AVOIDANCE, you want to ask me to a bloody dance?!"

_No._ Tom opened his mouth and he was positive she actually snarled – a full on, bestial snarl.

"Well you will have to find someone more your speed, you ignominious—" Hermione's mouth opened and closed angrily, her eyes flitting around as she tried to search for a suitable word to pair her insult with until finally she growled,_** "—PRAT!" **_ Without sparing another glance at him, Hermione turned on her heel and stomped back down the hallway, moving right past the Great Hall doors on to a destination that was only her own.

Tom's mouth finally snapped shut after her exit but he remained standing there, alone, in the hallway with a rather dull look of confusion tugging the corners of his mouth into a frown. He stared down the way Persephone stormed off for a long moment before looking back to the alcove they'd occupied. When he looked at the slight recess, a not entirely unpleasant tickle ran from the base of his neck down the length of his spine. Tom, blinking at the alcove, eventually came to wonder why he was staring at it in the first place. The next thing he knew, he was walking – and already partway there, in fact – to the seventh floor corridor without having any recollection of the time between leaving his spot near the Hall and where he currently stood.

Stopping mid step, when he realized that he was unable to fully trace back the minutes of where he'd been and what he'd done between waiting for that insufferable witch to arrive to dinner and now that familiar, horrible nauseating feeling began to turn his stomach once again.

. . . . .

"Good morning, Poppy!"

Hermione jumped, startled by the cheery greeting from Lawrence nearly as soon as she crossed the threshold of the Great Hall. "Ah, good morning Lawrence," she said with a hoarse rasp, squinting at his chipper state.

Lawrence frowned and fell into step beside her, slowing to match her sluggish pace. Nudging her playfully with his shoulder against hers, he asked, "You alright? You look a bit…"

He hesitated a long while, searching for a polite way to say she looked as though she'd been dragged by the ankle from one side of the Forbidden Forest to the other, hitting every root, rock, and tree stump on the way. _"…tired."_

She saw quite clearly what he really thought of her appearance and snorted. "Like shite, you mean?" Hermione shrugged. "I'm alright…just...I haven't slept well in a bit."

It was a strange thing to have warring pieces of oneself awake and active almost constantly. One might say she had the best of both worlds, really. She had the ever studious intensity of her school aged self, coupled with the youth and energy to expend towards her constant reading and research, and _also_ had all the dark knowledge and experience that came with her older consciousness right up until she'd done all the magic to set up a command tower in her brain.

Yes, it would have been positively perfect had she not also had to reopen all the raw memories of being the girl that practically none of her peers cared for in school, reliving it with an entirely different generation of cattiness to experience as well as partaking in the vivid and random flashes of memories of all the people she'd cared about dying in the very halls she had to walk every day. That and the angry piece of that older and significantly crazier voice nestled in her head was very vocal about her newest failure as the days passed. With Hermione's work there not going as smoothly as originally planned, that dark piece was pushing for more control to set things right and, with what little clarity afforded to her inside her muddled head, Hermione knew that if she were to let it out entirely things were liable to be irreparably_**fucked.**_

"I'm sorry to hear that," Lawrence said with a frown. They stopped at the foot of the long tables and he curled an arm around her shoulders for a light squeeze, completely oblivious to the way she stiffened at his touch. "Anything I can do to help?"

Hermione mustered a tight smile, easing her way out of his hold smoothly enough that he didn't appear offended. "I'll be alright," she assured him, "I'm just—I'm just going to go grab a bite at my table this morning and head on, if that's alright?"

His frown deepened but Lawrence nodded anyway. "Yeah, sure." He didn't seem terribly convinced that eating alone would solve any of her troubles but the Hufflepuff didn't push the issue. After a tick he gave her a shrug and that warm smile was back. "Just let me know if I can do anything?"

She returned his smile with a great deal of effort and agreed. "Of course." Bidding the boy a quick farewell until later, Hermione trudged towards the other Ravenclaws where she could sit in her nice ostracized space and try to shove a meal down her throat in an attempt to stave off some of her exhaustion.

All the while, in her wrung out state, Hermione neglected to notice the set of eyes burning through her since the moment she stepped into the Hall.

Tom had his fork and knife in hand, knuckles white with the intense grip he had on both, and looked as if he was working on bending the utensils in half.

He was aching – _**aching**_ – to go to her, to stomp right up to Persephone, rip that badger boy's arm _right_ the bloody hell off, and have another word with the girl. He wanted it. Gods, he wanted it so badly that he thought he might kill someone – he nearly _had_ killed someone after they'd talked the night before, in fact; Mulciber, he wouldn't have been missed – but it was the fact that he still was unable to recall several of the moments of the discussion the night before that helped him to remain seated. Tom couldn't allow losing time, losing minutes, especially when they involved anything having to do with Persephone.

Tom watched the brief exchange between Persephone and the prat, brightening some when they parted and the witch shuffled on to her own table.

_He couldn't afford to approach her again just yet, not without a plan._

"Abraxas."

Abraxas nearly choked on his eggs at the sudden and seemingly random snap of his name. "Y-yes, Tom?"

"Persephone Callaghan."

Every one of his followers around him stopped whatever they were doing and stiffened at the name. Avery turned a sickening shade of puce.

"Yes, my Lord? What of Per—" Tom moved his head for the first time in several minutes and leveled him with a dark glare at the sound of _him_ saying her name and Abraxas corrected himself quickly, bowing his head. "—M-miss Callaghan?"

"She favours you," Tom said it matter-of-factly, though the hint of distaste in his tone made the other boy hunch in on himself. "I want you to bring me the name of the boy she's invited to Professor Slughorn's Halloween Masque."

"M-my Lord," he protested out of reflex and it earned him another menacing look, though he boldly pressed onward, "forgive me, but I have not spoken with Miss Callaghan since—well, not truly _spoken_ to her since before the term."

Tom was quiet for a long stretch of seconds. As each one ticked by, Abraxas visibly grew more sickly looking and if he could have dissolved into the floor in those moments, he likely would have. As for the rest of Tom's followers, they were all eerily silent, each of them trying their hardest to either find a very interesting dust mote to follow with their eyes or trying to appear as though they were enjoying their mate's impending punishment far less than they actually were.

Several more seconds passed before Tom's mouth finally curved into a smile and he relented, turning his attention back onto his breakfast plate. Beginning a methodical slicing of a breakfast sausage into neatly squared cubes, he firmly skewered several pieces with his fork and spoke again. "Then you have quite a lot of catching up to do, now don't you?"

The order was clearer than crystal. "Y-yes. _Yes_, my Lord. You are, of course, right in all things."

. . . . .

Sprawled by the lake with a pleasant warming charm on a blanket she had brought with her, Hermione had ventured out and away from the other students for some peace and quiet. The voices in her head had taken to adding unpleasant shrieking to the already aggravating nattering of the girls' dormitory and, while she'd only managed to muffle one half of the problem, she at least opted to extract herself from the tower to get some research done. It was fortunate, perhaps, that she'd helped to murder the only classmate that would have been likely to investigate her whereabouts to see if _she_ were still breathing.

The faint crunching of fallen leaves and the echoes of twigs snapping underfoot drew Hermione's attention away from her tome and she looked along the tree line. When a neatly parted mop of white blond hair atop a pale, pointy face came into view, she just sighed.

Perhaps there was _one_ other occupant of Hogwarts still that maintained interest in her.

"Abraxas. It's been a while." Hermione eyed him up and down knowingly. "What information has our dear Mister Riddle tasked you with retrieving from me this day?"

Abraxas stammered, "_M_-_miss Callaghan_, I don't know what—"

"_Please," _she interrupted before looking back down at the book she was reading. "Do us all a favour and cut to the point. What does he want to know? More blubbering about some charm or curse or—"

"Your date," he blurted, well and truly ready to be out of the middle of whatever this _thing_ was that was happening between this witch and his master.

"My…_date_?"

"Yes." He nodded. "Tom would like to know, ah…which wizard it is that is escorting you to the Masque."

Hermione stopped reading and turned her attention slowly upward to examine Abraxas' rather awkward expression as well as his fidgeting. "Tom Riddle…wishes to know…who my _date_ is," she said all the words slowly as if trying to be sure she was processing the correct ones.

"Y-yes."

She shut her book, turning her full attention onto him now. "You will have to excuse my questioning, Mister Malfoy, but for what purpose, exactly, would Tom need to know this information? _Nefarious_ ones, perhaps?"

To his credit, Abraxas did not appear to grow any more uncomfortable at the query – he did not grow any _less_ uncomfortable, of course…but at the very least he did not seem any _more_ put out than he already was. "I am afraid I am not privy to such information, Miss Callaghan," he said mildly, watching her with weary eyes as she tucked her tome into her bag and held a dainty hand up to him.

Without thinking, Abraxas took her small hand in his larger one and helped her to her feet in one fluid movement. No sooner than she was standing was there a wand point pressed sharply into his temple. _Where_ she'd stowed the thing and _when_ exactly she'd whipped it out, he wasn't entirely sure, but Abraxas could very clearly feel the steady hum of barely restrained magic dancing over his skin near the wood. He shut his eyes tightly and silently cursed his habitual conditioning, the strange and enchanting witch threatening him then, and his master's hang up on her personal itinerary – _very_ silently he cursed them all.

"Abraxas," Hermione said evenly, "What has Master Riddle shared with you about me?"

His grey eyes cracked open, confusion evident as he looked at her. "What—p-practically nothing, my Lady. Nothing I have not witnessed with my own eyes."

Hermione arched a brow at the title given to her but pressed on. With one hand still laying gently across his palm as the other twisted her wand, digging a bit further into his skin, she tilted her head and watched his face with interest. "Tell me, Abraxas…do you _fancy_ me?" Hermione had not thought it possible, but Abraxas' face went very, _very_ pale. She gave him a reassuring smile. "Despite my wand being poised at your head, I promise not to kill you if you say no."

Abraxas swallowed thickly and appeared to be testing his voice a few times before his mouth opened to speak.

"I _will_ kill you where you stand if you **lie** to me, however." To further reinforce the truth behind her words, she twisted her wrist and several locks of Abraxas' fine white blond hair were sliced off in chunks by a swift, wordless spell. "So, we'll ask again: do you fancy me?"

His mouth snapped shut again, eyes going wide as he watched the clumps of hair float past his nose. Abraxas felt a wash of magic, thick and dark and heavy the likes of which he'd felt only in the throes of his own Lord's punishment, licking at his skin with its sudden release. Swallowing several more times, he finally replied with a hoarse, "_Yes_, my Lady." The words left his tongue and he winced as though simply admitting them aloud would get him strung up by the very man that had sent him there to speak with her.

A slow smile curved her lips and Hermione dragged her wand from his temple down his cheek to dance lightly over the pretty angles of his jaw. She tucked the point of it in the hollow of his chin and nudged his head until he was looking in her direction. "You're not just saying that, now _are_ you, love?"

Abraxas had never felt more like he was stuck between a rock and a hard place in the entirety of his short – _and possibly soon to be over_ – life. "N-no, my Lady."

Her head ticked to one side at the title once again and she huffed a laugh. "So _formal._" Hermione shrugged and with the hand still in his, she shifted her grip so their fingers threaded together and moved it so they were holding hands at their sides. She felt him twitch as if to pull his hand away but, seeming to think better of it, Abraxas settled himself quickly, although he looked as though he would pass out at any moment. "Abraxas," she hummed teasingly, "if I were to insist that _you_ were to take me to the Masque, would you refuse?"

"No, my Lady, of course not." Persephone nodded in approval of his immediate answer and then slowly, deliberately, she withdrew her wand from his neck and neatly guided it to a spot behind her back that he could not see.

Hermione holstered her wand in the band of her skirt and returned her hand, palm up and empty, to his sight. "And what about _now_?"

When her hand reappeared bare, Abraxas only felt himself grow exponentially more nervous than before. Images of how Persephone had dissolved his mate, Avery, into a blubbering puddle of mess at her feet with a single touch flickered across his vision. Tom had set him straight just the other night, but the sorts of things his Lord must have seen in the other boy's head to make him snarl and spit and punish them _all_ for Avery's shortcomings…well, Abraxas had no desire to experience them first hand.

"No, my Lady," Abraxas choked out quickly.

"And…for my own curiosity's sake—since he sent you _all_ this way—I would like to ask for your insight on your task. What would our Mister Riddle do if, say, you _were_ to escort me to this dance?"

A cold shiver of fear danced down his spine and he felt dizzy and sick and hollow as Abraxas contemplated _exactly_ what Tom Riddle would do to him if he returned to advise him that _he,_ Abraxas Malfoy, would be Persephone's date. It must have shown clearly on his face through the trickling beads of sweat sweeping over his forehead, cheeks, and neck because she let out a tinkling laugh.

"Calm yourself, dear Abraxas," Hermione cooed at last. "I happen to like you and, though you seem to have anchored yourself to an egotistical, idiotic, and irritating _git_ at this juncture, I would enjoy keeping you around. I will give you a name to return to your _Master_ with." Her use of that title seemed to surprise him and she wondered why the pretty ones were often so very _daft_. "I have _one_ condition, though."

Abraxas gulped and, even as he towered over her presently unarmed figure with one of his hands linked with hers, he felt a pit of dread forming in his gut as she looked intently at him with eyes that shone with confidence and cleverness that his most basic instincts of survival knew not to test. "_Anything_, my Lady."

"I will require a name in return."

. . . . .

It started with her voice fading into his consciousness and a part of him knew, just as he'd known in the hallway, that he was losing focus, that his mind was being tugged somewhere else that was anywhere but where he actually was. Yes, a part of him _knew_…but then another part of him felt the warm caress of this place – wherever it was – and simply wanted to bask in it.

"…_I've a tome on it somewhere. Here I think."_

He heard her footsteps and her rummaging just around the corner, just out of view from where he was. Tom tilted his head to one side curiously, anticipating her return as his senses fleshed out his surroundings. Heat, warmth, the light of the sun streaming through blinds from a window behind him. Soft, silky smooth sheets wrinkled beneath his hands and elbows where he was propped, apparently sprawled on a bed.

Tom called her name and the piece of him that knew this was a dream listened frustratingly closely to try and decipher what he'd called her.

_Hermione._

It was familiar, this name. He'd called her this once before in the hallway and as soon as it'd passed his lips it had fled from his memory. It was the thing that had snapped them free of their trance and if he could but _remember_ it this time – if he could remember _anything_ \- perhaps it would give him the power over her that he required to overcome her magic.

This is what he told himself.

These are the reasons that Tom Riddle provided in favor of ignoring the tingling sensation of _rightness_ the title held when he said it again in this dream space.

This is what he repeated in his mind while bracing himself further against the witchcraft she'd spun to ensnare him here in his most private of domains, preparing himself for her to come back around the corner so he could will her out like a demon at an exorcism.

Unfortunately, Tom Riddle was very ill prepared for the sight of the somewhat older looking and also _**fully nude**_ witch as she rounded the corner, a large aged tome open in one hand as she flipped through its pages.

_Well, not__** completely **__nude._ He amended his initial tally of her appearance to include the intricate locket with its delicately cut and polished red colored stone hanging between her very bare breasts.

His mouth went dry.

"Right, here it is," she said without looking up. Persephone—or, _Hermione?_—sat down next to him, one leg dangling off the bed while the other was bent at the knee with her foot tucked beneath the opposite thigh. Dragging her finger along lines of text before her, she continued matter-of-factly, "The Statute of Secrecy had been implemented with the best of intentions initially in 1692-"

"1689," Tom heard himself say reflexively, even as his attention was very much focused on the long lines of her legs, creamy and delicate and _**so**_ very exposed. His eyes lingered at the apex of her thighs on her sex where her position was affording him a generous view that made the new realization that he was _also_ nude come to his attention.

"No," Hermione said with a _tsk_, eyes still scanning the tome. "It was _signed_ in 1689, it was _implemented_ in 1692. Now, as I was saying—"

His attention to her words trailed off again, much more occupied with how vivid this image was, how positively _real_ she appeared there. The detail of her magic remained amazing and impressive and he just wanted to see how very real she'd made it all.

That is, of course, what he also told himself was the reason that he reached out to touch one of those tantalizing little breasts with their perfectly pert nipples and smattering of freckles near the edge of color to the dusky peaks.

Hermione swatted away his touch absently. "Tom, pay attention. _Merlin,_ it's as though you don't see them every day."

He took the rebuff in stride and replaced his hand lower to the light curve of her stomach instead, dancing his touch over the taut bit of skin. "And I see a sunrise each morning as well, but it does not make it any less wondrous than the one before it."

"Tom Marvolo Riddle, poetic flattery will get you precisely _nowhere._" Despite her tone, the smallest of smirks quirked her lips. "_Now,_" she said again,"it was implemented as a means of protection for all parties involved, but over the years it has dissolved into a very…well…a nearly _barbaric_ chain of additional rules and addendums that have formulated it into a brand new 'us versus them' sort of thing. If we start here with the dissolution of these and then move onto—HEY!" Her speech was cut short when Tom reached forward, plucked the tome from her grasp, and chucked it back over his shoulder.

"I find myself uninterested in these addendums at this time," Tom said flatly as way of explanation.

Hermione's face reddened, she folded her arms, and she huffed with a glare that he'd come to recognize. "_WHAT_ have I told you about taking my books?"

Undeterred, Tom gave her an elegant shrug and pushed to his knees, keeping his eyes on hers as he moved. "You have a tendency to hit, rather than _'tell'_ me anything, love." She tracked him with a narrowed gaze and he felt himself smirk as he lashed out, suddenly yanking her more fully onto the mattress and dropping her to the sheets. He hurriedly swung one knee over her to frame her legs with his and admired how she looked spread out beneath him. Falling forward, he caught himself with his hands before he crushed her with his weight and buried his face in the nest of curls next to her ear. "I rather adore it."

"You are incorrigible," Hermione huffed at him again, though it was cut short and transformed into a shaky exhale when his teeth came down to nip at her shoulder.

Tom had taken to alternating between nibbles and kisses to her skin as he worked his way down the length of her body, being sure to pause and kiss the nipple he'd so rudely been denied before – as well as its twin. He peered up from her, catching her half-lidded stare as he traced the point of his tongue around the dip of her navel. "I could stop if you'd prefer," he murmured, "all you need do is say the word."

"Don't you _dare,_" she hissed quickly, head falling back to the bed when he chuckled and continued down his path.

Somewhere along the line, Tom's disorienting haze of watching himself act oddly in a dream state with a witch he clearly loathed had faded and blended into what had instead become the firsthand experience of tucking his face between her very, _very_ warm and welcoming thighs to lap at her with no semblance of modesty. That tiniest sliver of his mind that had reminded him to will himself free of her spell at the start of this dream had all but faded into nothingness and all that he was left with was the aching desire to wallow in her essence.

He wanted her scent on him.

He wanted to wear the bruises and scars of their passion like a proud mantle.

He wanted her sounds of pleasure, elation, and her _joy_ ringing in his ears for all of time.

With painful clarity, Tom understood that he wanted _her._

_He traced her with his tongue and she moaned._

_He suckled her with his lips and she cried._

_He loved every inch of her with every bit of him and she shattered in his arms._

_Hermione…_

"_Tom."_

_...-ermione…_

"Tom."

_...—ione…_

"**Tom!"**

Tom's eyes snapped open to see the unpleasant sight of Tarquin Nott staring down into his face from the other side of his half opened bed curtains. The boy looked immediately uncomfortable when his gaze focused and took a moment to examine Nott's appearance. Tom noted that he had already showered and dressed for the day and, with what seemed to require a momentous amount of effort, he sat up, scrubbing at his face. "What time is it?"

Nott cast his eyes downward and stood straight and firm even though he was nervously thumbing the handle of his wand. "Half nine, my Lord. The—ah—the others are outside." He paused, tongue feeling thick and heavy in his mouth. "We'd tried to wake you earlier but—"

"Leave," Tom barked. He normally would have delighted in his minion's flinch, but his attention was taken by the flickering spots and the accompanying headache pounding steadily against the backs of his eyes. He whipped a hand out and yanked the bed curtains shut once more, pausing only to add, "Tell the professors I am _ill_."

Tarquin Nott seemed flustered but Tom could no longer see his expression, nor would he have given any series of shites about it if he had. He waited until the boy had finished apologizing and agreeing and oh of course he would take care of everything, and when Nott had finally worked his way out of the room, carefully shutting the door behind him, Tom let out the most frustrated, feral, and _ferocious_ sounding snarl his gruff, sleep thick voice could muster.

_That—bloody—__**WITCH.**_

Even now, the details of his dream were fading.

The name was already lost to him-it was the first thing to go. Next to follow had been the memory of her touches and, most regrettably, the taste of her on his tongue.

The last of the dream to fade, the one piece that his mind seemed to be most determined to hold on to, tore at his chest as it left him.

That last cluster of warm weight from her body as she lay spent and thoroughly pleasured upon his chest.

That last look, that one last moment where Persephone would gaze up at him and _smile_...

The world dropped away with that smile and the rest of time and space became an irrelevant twinkling of an idea. In that memory, he knew that he lived for that moment. He lived for her. He would _die_ for her. He would build up a world or tear one to the ground for her, for that single most important creature and the way she looked at him.

Every part of him _**knew**_ that he would, that it was all a hard, solid, indisputable fact that made his entire being ache from the honesty of it.

And when that memory finally faded, too, all that was left in its wake was that chest constricting, heart stopping ache that left Tom hunched upon his bed, struggling to breathe through the pain of its loss.

. . . . .

Tom had not left the dormitories at all until the evening. He had spent the majority of his time alone and in bed with curtains drawn, reading in the muted silence of his four poster. He toiled over the tomes he'd coveted, reading about all the curses and charms and hexes over and over, searching for something—_**anything**_—he may have missed earlier until he could stand the incessant grumbling of his stomach no longer.

Lacking a great deal of energy, or care for that matter, Tom made himself presentable enough to go to dinner and, by the few stifled looks of shock he observed on his way, he presumed he had been somewhat lacking with the execution. Had he not felt so uncomfortably hollow at the moment, he _may_ have cared.

As Tom entered the Hall, his eyes automatically scanned the dinner crowd, checking on what had become the "usual" spots for Persephone and, after finding no sign of her in the vicinity, shuffled onward to join his minions at their table. His stomach had started churning, a sour taste bubbling up onto the back of his tongue as the smells of the food intensified and the unconscious disappointment of her absence soured his disposition as well. Tom had even neglected to notice his minions' comical scrambling to cease all their inappropriate witch talk and repositioning for his arrival in the wake of his otherwise occupied thoughts.

One of them asked if he was well; he waved them off and absently portioned food onto his plate. He was partway through slicing up a stewed potato when a small folded piece of parchment was slid into view from his side.

Tom stopped his slicing to blink dully at the paper. He turned that bland stare to Abraxas who had been looking proud of himself until Tom actually acknowledged him and visibly shriveled under his master's bloodshot gaze.

"What is this?" Tom asked, annoyed.

"It-it's what you required, my Lord," Abraxas' eyes darted around as he answered quietly. When Tom made no outward indication he had any clue what he was speaking of, the blond cleared his throat. "The _name,_ sir."

_Ah._

Understanding blossomed in his stare and Tom set his utensils down to unfold the parchment. He scanned over the name once, twice…

And then the smile that curled his lips was positively _vicious._


	24. Chapter 23 - Jealousy (Book II)

**23 – Jealousy**

October 27, 1943

For any other that feasted their eyes upon the tight script of Persephone's writing, they would see a nonsensical riddle with enough snarky finesse befitting of the Ravenclaw she was.

_For your subversions I care not__  
__A wit per gentle crew.__  
__And as to the partner whom I have sought,__  
__He decidedly is not you._

For Tom, of course, he was cleverer than she, and could so easily see the name glaring back at him, buried within the text.

_Wonderful,_ Tom thought to himself, still smiling, _absolutely wonderful._

. . .

October 28, 1943

"—_you believe it?"_

"_That's a-MAZING! I can't! I really just can't!"_

"_I __**KNOW**__. I think I'm going to—oh, wait, shh…_"

Hermione's most loathed gaggle of classmates appeared in the doorway to the dormitory's shared facilities, stopping their chatter abruptly when they spotted her bent over the sink brushing her teeth. The new leader – _Margaret. Mary? Melanie…?_ – stilled her companions with a stiff arm and, upon seeing _who_ it was occupying the room, smiled the most wickedly sly smile Hermione had ever seen on anyone short of herself.

"Good morning, Persephone!"_ What's-her-name_ said all too cheerily. "I don't remember seeing you come in last night…out late _reading _again?"

_"Of course she was just reading."_

_"Yeah, it's not like she has anyone to spend time with anymore, well, except for the Pettigrew kid."_

_"Ugh, he's so gross. He's always got dirt under his nails."_

_"Uh, how would you know __**that**__ much about his nails?"_

Headache already in bloom for the day, Hermione turned back to the sink as if she could shut out the stupidity at her back. She swirled her brush around over her teeth several more times while finding and holding the one bitch's still oddly leering gaze in the mirror. Only when she leaned forward to make a small show of rinsing, swishing, and spitting did the girl's grin falter at all.

Hermione dabbed at her mouth with a cloth and, still holding _whoever-she-was'_ gaze via reflection, said, "Yes, as a matter of fact. You may find it difficult to believe, but it's surprisingly difficult to concentrate in a room buzzing with the ever so urgent nattering about which boy in our year has started to sport facial hair." She sent a little sneer at the girl who'd started to huff and puff and whose cheeks were now turning an unflattering shade of red then moved to pack up her toiletries. "It's truly a pity that all that extra reading will likely get me nothing but a prestigious position at the Ministry while all of _your_ extra efforts will obviously land you a most fortuitous and longstanding union filled with respect and equality with _'Freddie from Charms.'_"

One of the other girls stepped up, also huffing and puffing on behalf of her pack leader. "You _bi—"_

"I wouldn't count on that, Callaghan," the red-faced mean girl interrupted the other with a raised hand and far too much malice in her tone for someone that didn't _know_ something.

Hermione paused in gathering her supplies and narrowed her eyes, turning her full attention over her shoulder. The girl smirked at her and, with a noticeable amount of effort to ease the agitated tightness in her posture, made a show of setting up at the sink next to hers.

"If _I_ were you," she started with a much more patronizing tone than she'd used previously as she went about her own morning routine, "I _would_ start paying attention to your options because—" The girl looked her over and scoffed. "—they don't accept _your_ sort in The Ministry. In fact, you might even be hard pressed to find a good suitor at all with your particular pedigree irregardless of your thinly veiled attempts to pad your shortcomings with extraneous knowledge." And, looking as though she'd just discovered gravity, she added, "Is _that_ why Tom Riddle dumped you, dear? Finally realized nothing would come of courting a dowdy little _Mu—"_

Unwilling to discover exactly how she was planning to finish that question, Hermione was in the girl's personal space in a second. Hermione's sudden appearance just a scant few centimetres from idiot-girl's face startled her so much that her toothbrush fell into the sink with a clatter as she, along with the other girls that had entered with her, all gasped in shock. Hermione schooled her expression into one of aloof disinterest despite her proximity and the satisfying tremor that rippled through the girl with every suddenly panicked and spearmint tinged breath being exhaled onto her cheeks.

With a smile, Hermione reached out to retrieve the fallen toothbrush, moving back only far enough to pass the item over between them then tilted her head to one side. "It's complicated," she said politely, "and the word is 'regardless,' _**dear.**_"

The girl's mouth snapped shut from its previous gaping and her shocked face morphed into a kind of indignant anger. _**"You—"**_

"Are _dreadfully_ late to breakfast." Showing an impressive amount of control, Hermione snatched up her toiletry bag from the sink and gave the girl a wide, tight smile. "See you around."

. . . . .

Wind whipping through his hair, the sky clear and blue and bright, the air fresh and cool on his skin as he zipped around on his broom, what else could he really have to ask for during a practice?

"_Abraxas."_

A lump of cold dread began to form in the pit of his stomach. Just him and the team out there that afternoon. That hint of his name certainly couldn't belong to the person that it sounded like it did.

"_**Abraxas!"**_

Reluctantly, Abraxas turned his head, half wanting to pretend he'd never noticed his name carrying on the wind and the other half knowing that if he pretended much longer there would be consequences that he wasn't willing to pay. It was easy to spot her, seeing as how none of their housemates had come to the pitch to watch them do laps and maneuvers that day. Still, he let himself complete the act of pretending, eyes scanning across the stands once or twice before settling onto the figure bundled in her robes with a long blue and bronze scarf coiled around her neck.

Abraxas called a brief explanation out to his team and excused himself from their rounds to fly down to the Slytherin stands where none other than Persephone Callaghan was leaned against the front of the box, waiting for him to land. "Miss Callaghan," Abraxas greeted charmingly as he touched down, "I never pegged you much as one for Quidditch."

"I'm not," she said evenly with a slight smile. "I wanted to meet with you somewhere that Tom would most certainly not be."

He frowned at the reminder that his Lord greatly disapproved of the sport. Casting a quick look over his shoulder, Abraxas asked, "What about Mulciber and Lestrange? They…they could report back to—"

Hermione stepped closer to Abraxas, leaning in and angling her head in such a way that, from the rest of the team's hovering view point if they dared to look, their meeting may look a touch on the unsavory side. "And what would they report back to Tom with, Abraxas?" she asked, never actually laying her hands on the boy. Hermione let her eyes wander over the angular planes that practically _screamed_ 'Malfoy' and took silent delight in the way the Pureblood flinched beneath her stare. She caught his gaze and made sure to make hers as wistful and dreamy as possible in case anyone might actually get a closer look. "He would question you. What is it you would say?"

Abraxas gulped, resisted shutting his eyes against her proximity, and prayed silently to Merlin that the others were too involved in running plays without him that they'd not take much care or notice of his meeting. His hands gripped his broom in a strangling hold and he both hated and reveled in the fresh, floral scent of Persephone that permeated the musk of his sweat and leathers. If he survived this year and whatever was happening between this girl and his master with his sanity and all of his bits intact, he would consider it a _'good'_ year.

She spared him the task of actually answering and took a step out of his most intimate space bubble, fixing him with a knowing smile. "You didn't read the parchment you delivered to him."

It was a statement, though Abraxas answered anyway. "No, my Lady."

"Have you been able to procure the name of his date yet?"

Abraxas' grip tightened further on his broom and his eyes shifted off to find interest in a knot in the wood of a nearby bench.

He had, in fact, been able to draw the name out of his master. The only way Abraxas had come up with one was to blindly offer his own assistance in procuring a date for Tom, seeing as how he was not as up to date on the availability of the girls of their year outside of…certain ones. Tom had taken quite a bit of offense at that. The insinuation that he had any degree of ineptitude towards women – idiots or not –had caused him to angrily name one of Persephone's housemates as his date and, incidentally, nearly got himself castrated in the process.

Abraxas had an inkling as to what sort of fate would befall the girl due to show up on Tom's arm and so he hesitated in supplying his answer.

"Abraxas?" Hermione arched an eyebrow and tilted her head to one side, reaching to slide her fingers delicately across the knuckles of one of Abraxas' hands. "I promise I won't be upset if you need a bit more time, pet."

Abraxas _also_ had an inkling as to what sort of fate would befall _**him **_if he dared to fib even this tiniest of bits to the witch before him.

He swallowed loudly at her touch and shook his head. "One of your housemates," he said hurriedly, "Heather Darby."

Hermione's brow furrowed and her expression became clouded with confusion as she sifted through an internal Ravenclaw roster, trying to pin the name to a face and found herself coming up short of an answer. Fact of the matter was, there was no one of importance named "Heather Darby" in her itinerary and she seldom committed her classmates' names and titles to memory if she didn't need to—her mind was cluttered enough as is.

"This 'Heather,' what does she look like?"

"I-I'm unsure, my Lady." Not a lie, though the lack of this piece of information had his insides doing flips with anticipation. "I can find out for you," he offered preemptively.

Having been lost in a light daze of thought, Hermione's vision refocused on the tall, pale boy, decked head to toe in Quidditch leathers. His white blond hair was mussed and stringy, falling well into his eyes now that his sweat had cooled some and was no longer sticking each fine cluster to his skin. She watched his pointed jaw twitch and tense as he worried the inside of his cheek in a most telling way and Hermione couldn't deny that the sight of him fretting was intoxicating. Mix that with the image of him all strapped and padded and the scent of his physical exertion lingering in the air between them and the pleasant flutter in her belly brought a conniving smile to her face.

Hermione cupped the side of Abraxas' face, chuckling inwardly when he moved into her touch despite the struggle behind his otherwise stoic expression. "Thank you, but no. I believe further involvement may be dangerous to your well-being." Before he could insist, she pushed to her toes and gave him a chaste peck on the cheek, delighting in the pink flush that flooded his complexion. "You're my favourite, Abraxas. Remember that."

"Th-thank you, my Lady," Abraxas stammered out, his cheek burning hot where her lips were moments ago. Her praise felt like sunshine that warmed him from the inside out. Her presence brought with it the strangest, yet most sensuous, massage of power that stroked along every inch of his being, relaxing some muscles while stirring others to attention. He knew, logically, that to be in her favor was perhaps even more dangerous than being enlisted as one of Tom Riddle's men, but the visceral dread of losing that warmth, that praise, sat so heavily within him that he couldn't bear the thought of it for very long at all.

He would continue to help his Lady.

_He was her favourite, after all._

Persephone bid him farewell and made her way out of the Slytherin bleachers, leaving him standing there to watch her departure, swaying in the light breeze whenever it would blow. He was unsure of how long he'd stood there before one of his teammates shouted at him and snapped him from his trance. Shaking his head, Abraxas settled back onto his broom and kicked off, zipping back into the sky.

The further he was from her presence, the more settled into his plays he became, a subtle fog that had rolled into his mind began to dissipate and a single, unsettling thought circled in his head.

_This would likely NOT be a good year._

. . .

October 29, 1943

The telltale giggling could be heard well in advance that day, though _this_ time, Hermione was anticipating the girls with a wickedly hopeful glee.

Heather Darby, she'd discovered by some delicate sleuthing around the dorms, was a most esteemed member of the bitch squad that persisted in Olive Hornby's absence. It was unfortunate, however, that apparently there was more than one _"Heather"_ in their little group. Hermione had been unable to thoroughly scour and scout out the surnames on their belongings before the whole mess of them had returned from dinner the night before. It was no matter. There was an easy enough way to find out without drawing all that much attention to herself.

Hermione finished up at the sink and packed away her things. Once the inane laughter drew closer, she grabbed up her toiletry bag and set herself in a firm march out of the shared facilities. Eyes down towards her shoes, she saw their feet before she felt their bodies collide and whoever had been in front went tumbling down in a heap with her.

Unfortunately, the screech did not belong to the alpha bitch.

Unfazed, Hermione muttered a rushed apology, and immediately went about helping the Heather retrieve her bag. "Sorry, Darby," she said hurriedly once they were both on their feet again, "I didn't see you there."

A scoff sounded off to the side and the voice of their leader lashed out. "_**I'm**_ Darby, you nit, she's Heather _Mercer_. Merlin's sake, are you blind?"

Hermione did well to suppress the venomous look of elation threatening to bubble right out of her. "My apologies, _Heather,_" she said, smiling. "Your sort all just look _**so**_ similar to us Muggle-borns, I suppose." Heather Darby sneered at her, looking very much as though she was about to say something particularly snotty, when Hermione reached out and plucked a hair from near the girl's shoulder, stifling herself further at the sound of the shocked yelp that followed.

"_**OW! **_What the HELL, Callaghan?" Darby growled while rubbing at her scalp.

"Ah," said Hermione, appearing embarrassed and wiggling her fingers as though she were ridding herself of the strand. "Sorry again. Thought it was a stray."

"Well it _wasn't!_"

Hermione apologized once more and made a hasty exit on the tail of a muttered excuse. She waited until she was well out of sight before her posture eased and she worked the small wad of hair into a vial tucked into her bag. Making her way towards the tower exit, Hermione heard a disgruntled final screech come from the direction she had left.

"_UGH! She's so bloody __**weird**__!"_

. . . . .

Professor Slughorn peered over the shoulder of Persephone Callaghan, drawing back with a proud lopsided grin on his face. He hooked his fingers in the lapels of his coat and rocked back on his heels, giving the girl a nod of approval. "Wonderful, Miss Callaghan. It's coming along swimmingly. _As usual_." He had himself a cheerful chuckle. "I say, if more students your age had the gumption to tackle their difficult projects in advance, we'd be up to our necks in perfection!"

Hermione blushed prettily and ducked her head, making a show of concentrating on stirring the cauldron. "Sir, please," she said shyly, "I just believe in making the most of the time provided to us. Waste not, want not I always say. If anything, I really should be praising you for allowing me to brew at this late hour."

Slughorn scoffed and chased away the thought as though it were preposterous. "Absolutely _not_, Miss Callaghan! I am your Professor!" he proclaimed with a stern finger pointing to the sky, "If one of my students has the drive to excel and all they need of me is some time and space for which to excel _in_, well, by Merlin, it is my duty to provide!" Smoothing his hands merrily down the front of his coat, Professor Slughorn turned a kind, warm look her way. "Think and say nothing of it."

"Thank you, sir," Hermione replied with a nod and another courteous dip of her head. "I truly do appreciate it and…I _do_ hope I'm not keeping you from your supper."

The mention of the evening meal caused the man's ever persistent grin to falter. "Ah. Well, as I said, my dear, I am here to serve. I'm sure the elves will be happy to fix me something later if need be. I'm sure you know how they are by now."

Hermione's stirring stopped for half a second, her mouth twitching with distaste before she resumed. "Yes. I've come to find that they do, rather vehemently, enjoy their position here at the castle." The wizard missed the intensity of the dark look that crossed her features before her more pleasant demeanor returned. "What if you were to fetch your meal before they clear the tables? I've already passed the most volatile point of brewing with this draught and, forgive me for insisting, sir, but I just don't want to be more of a nuisance than I've already become."

"Nonsense! You're anything but a nuisance, Miss Callaghan. And, kind as you are in your thinking, the rules remain that any student brewing on school grounds _must_ be supervised." There was a long beat of silence as Professor Slughorn considered his own words carefully before he was interrupted by the loud, ornery noise of his growling stomach. Both of his hands went to his round paunch as he cleared his throat in an after attempt to mask the sound. "I do, however, believe that _you_ are also missing a meal by being here, are you not? And, as your mentor, I simply cannot allow _that_ to happen, now can I?"

She didn't even try to hide the knowing grin from her professor, earning her a devious half-smile in return. "I defer to your good judgement, sir."

"Right, then," Slughorn patted both hands on his belly and made his way to his desk to retrieve his cap. "Anything you want in particular, Persephone, dear?"

"No, sir, but thank you for asking."

"And you'll…ah…you're sure you'll be fine here by yourself? I won't be long; I can promise you that!"

"Yes, Professor, of course."

"Brilliant! I'll return momentarily, Miss Callaghan."

Hermione watched the man leave, one hand still stirring her cauldron idly until she could no longer hear his shuffling footsteps down the hall. As soon as she was sure he wouldn't be returning to the classroom at any inopportune moment, she flicked her wand at the stirrer to keep it swirling through her draught and pushed off from her stool to pad quietly over to Slughorn's ingredients closet, making quick work of summoning the small handful of exotic ingredients off the shelves needed to supplement the private stores in her bottomless bag.

. . .

October 30, 1943

The hour was late when Hermione reached the seventh floor. Her satchel hung from one shoulder as she pictured an elaborate potions laboratory with all the equipment one could desire, quite similar to the sort she'd spent time in with Tom prior to his venture into the Chamber to wake his pet. She was sidetracked at the thought of that infuriating boy and her fists balled at her sides thinking of his stupid antics to make _her_, of all people, jealous.

_Well_, she thought sourly, _that obstacle would soon be overcome and we can return to my __**scheduled**__ plans._

Thanks to her lovely little Abraxas informing her that Tom had called no training meeting for them that evening, she paced alongside the wall with confidence that it would spawn precisely the lab she needed to create her tonic.

When the doors opened to reveal to her a cauldron, all neatly prepped and ready for her to begin brewing in, Hermione smiled in a most pleased, most wicked way.

. . . . .

_Elsewhere that evening. . ._

Lawrence shifted his texts in his arms, shuffling through the short lengths of parchment he'd brought with him for the evening's assignment. It wasn't often that they met on Saturdays but the planetary alignments were optimal for their current lesson plan; so that, as they say, was that.

He was early – he was _always_ early – but he was especially eager tonight, hoping to get his pick of telescopes. More so, he was hoping to get his pick of _partners._ With Persephone's help, Lawrence finally felt up to the task of asking Hazel to the winter formal. _'Be like a Gryffindor,'_ she'd said, _'act on your gut!'_

_That Persephone,_ he mused, _she was such a sweet girl._

"Good evening, Lawrence."

The Hufflepuff jumped, startled, one hand reaching out to clutch the precarious railing of the steep stairwell leading to the astronomy tower. He fumbled his class materials a moment before getting them under control and blinked rapidly up toward the tower platform where he'd heard his name. "H-hello?"

Tom Riddle stepped leisurely from the shadow of the castle wall looking as casual as he'd ever been. His hands were tucked into the pockets of his uniform trousers and he'd shed his typical blazer in favor of a simple grey sleeveless jumper in order to roll up his shirtsleeves to his elbows. Tom tilted his head at the other boy and gave him his best smile. "It _is_ Lawrence, isn't it? Lawrence Pettigrew?"

"A-ah, yes," he stammered then, remembering again Persephone's advice to _**be**_ a Gryffindor in all things, he straightened. "_**Yes**_, I'm Lawrence." Pettigrew adjusted his books and parchments to sit more steadily in the crook of his arm and took another step up, squinting at the boy at the top of the staircase. "Riddle? Tom Riddle, is that you?"

At the sound of his name, Tom quirked a brow and gave Lawrence another, more careful look. "We've _spoken_ before?"

Lawrence laughed nervously, Tom's question making a strange chill trickle down his spine. "N-no. Not properly, no," he said quickly and gave him a bit of a strained grin. "Poppy—er—_Persephone_ and I often sit together in the Hall and you, well, you've come up before. You've come _by_ before, actually." He ended the last with a small, ironic chuckle that faded awkwardly into the tight silence between them. Taking another step towards Tom with a clearing of his throat, he effectively closed the gap between them and proceeded to offer him a hand in cheery good faith. "It's good to formally meet you, Tom!"

Tom didn't move at first, just his eyes shifted, slowly, from Lawrence's face to his hand. His head canted in the other direction as he seemed to be openly considering the gesture. _"Poppy,"_ he said at last, tasting the name on his tongue as though he were trying out a new Honeydukes sweet.

Pettigrew swallowed audibly. There was an inherent question to the way Tom Riddle had said the nickname but with him still cocking his head to one side and the other like a curious bird at the concept of a handshake, Lawrence wasn't entirely sure how to respond. Eventually, he settled on a hesitant, "Y-yeah. Like…like the flower? Poppy is sometimes a—a nickname for—"

It was as far as Lawrence got before Tom struck.

His hands still tucked neatly in his pockets, Tom shifted his weight onto one leg while the other shot out to plant his foot firmly on the center of Lawrence's chest and _**shove**_ with as much force as he could.

It all happened in a swift series of seconds and all Lawrence could do was watch, eyes wide. Before he could think or act or even _speak_, he found himself plummeting backwards down the treacherous and very, _very_ long staircase he'd just traversed.

There weren't words to describe the pain. There were barely even coherent _thoughts_ available to categorize how the snaps and breaks and dings all felt when the sounds of them echoed in Lawrence's ears. It wasn't until he'd reached the bottom of the first stretch of stairs and his body finally came to a painful sort of rest, bruised, battered, and broken, that he even had a moment to really contemplate _**exactly**_ how much pain he was in.

The thought that _this_ arm and _that_ leg shouldn't bend that way also occurred to him.

A steady, methodical sound of someone casually making their way down the staircase barely pulled him from the funny edge of consciousness Lawrence teetered upon and he fuzzily thought that he'd like to see who it was. When he tried to turn his head to look and every single nerve ending in his body came to life at the same time, Lawrence realized, with a certain and brand new clarity, that _that_ was most definitely not going to happen. He felt his mouth drop open in a wail but, when no sound came out regardless of how eagerly his lungs tried to fuel it, a fresh wave of fear chilled him to his bones.

Tom reached the spot where Lawrence Pettigrew now lay frantically screaming a whole lot of nothing as the pale moonlight stretched his shadow across the boy's prone form. His jaw twitched at the sight of him, teeth grinding together as he looked him over again, trying to figure what was so special, so _important_ about this nobody. In a deceptively calm manner, Tom stepped over Lawrence's body and knelt down nearby just outside of his line of vision. He extracted his wand from a pocket and touched the tip of it to Pettigrew's temple, tracing it over the boy's skin as he leaned in to whisper, "Stay away from Persephone Callaghan, Lawrence."

Tom scanned Lawrence's face one last time, a feral sneer curling his lips back before he reared back and then slammed his fist into the Hufflepuff's face so heavily, the cartilage in his nose crunched and shifted under the blow. The boy's head ricocheted off the stone with such force that, between that and the punch, he finally, blissfully lost consciousness.

"She doesn't belong to you." Tom twisted his wand and hissed an _Obliviate_ through his teeth, leaving Lawrence Pettigrew only with memories of his 'accidental slip' down the staircase and the fierce urge to avoid extended contact with Persephone Callaghan at all costs.

* * *

_**A/N: **_Thanks again to all you lovely readers for your continued support.


	25. Chapter 24 - Masquerade (Book II)

**Chapter 24 – Masquerade**

October 31, 1943 - Halloween

Hermione did not finish brewing until morning. With dark bags beneath her eyes and the ever insistent shrieking of the voices inside her head, she snuck through the halls to return to Ravenclaw tower. The hour was still early yet, particularly for a Sunday morning, but Hermione still slunk and crept about as quietly as she could on her lack of sleep. Her energy was waning- the efforts to quiet the warring personalities in her mind utterly draining-so she went about deftly switching out some vials in Heather Darby's trunk with her tonic without the aid of a silencing spell. Sparing as few minutes as possible on the task, Hermione tucked evidence of her tampering away into her bag and set her sights on a bite to eat and as lengthy of a nap in the library as she could get away with until sundown.

Upon reaching the Great Hall, Hermione expected the usual overenthusiastic invitation to breakfast by the ever annoying Lawrence Pettigrew. What she _hadn't_ prepared for, however, was for one of his housemates that typically sat with them, Annabel, to come running up at the sight of her.

"Persephone!" Annabel wheezed, taking a moment to catch her breath, "Persephone, it's awful—just _awful! _I didn't hear until this morning! Professor Waldorf came to us this morning with it—oh MERLIN!"

Hermione blinked tiredly at the girl, eyes tracing over her excitable and frantic features. "Annabel," she said flatly, "What's awful?"

"_**LAWRENCE!"**_ the girl shrieked as though she should've known the answer from the start.

Her brows rose at the name and, even in her groggy state, Hermione was able to piece together a handful of scenarios that could have led to Lawrence being absent and this classmate of his flailing and bawling on his behalf. A slight sneer twisted her lips and her gaze floated towards the Slytherin table and back.

"What about Lawrence?" Hermione attempted to make her question as sympathetic as possible, but she was sure it fell very short of giving a damn.

Annabel didn't appear to notice. "He fell down the STAIRS, Persephone! The Professor said he'd slipped and fallen and, and, and—"

"Is he dead?"

The curt, plain way in which the girl asked finally seemed to register as 'odd' to Annabel and her mouth clamped shut. Eyes wide and the newly made obvious realization that he COULD have died in such an accident was rushing across her face in waves of emotion. "No!" Annabel squeaked. "Thank goodness, no! He's just recovering in the Hospital Wing."

Unable to contain the scowl upon her face, Hermione's attention drifted back to the smattering of bodies that'd gathered at that early hour from the snakes' den. She searched the crowd for the familiar head of Tom Riddle or any of his minions but found none of them up or out and about just yet. Narrowing her eyes, her hand tightened on her bag strap and she muttered, more to herself than the other witch, "How fortunate for him."

Having decided to skip breakfast altogether on account of the heightened screeching about her failure courtesy of the heckling elder voice in her mind, Hermione detoured to the Hospital Wing to check on the Pettigrew boy. Perhaps she should have known better than to dance so closely to the solution with her clue, especially considering Tom Riddle's propensity for reworking anagrams with disgusting ease, although a most primal piece of her brain delighted in the territorial display. Persistent stomach flutters aside, Hermione chastised her sloppiness the entire way to the Hospital Wing.

Her trek was filled with trying to figure how much effort would be required to patch up his new reputation for baffling clumsiness to something more appealing so that his Gryffindor princess might still spare him a glance. As she neared the entry way to the wing, however, Hermione heard a familiar bout of ragged laughter coming from within. Brows knitting together in confusion, she peered in to check on the occupants. It seemed that the Mediwitch that ran the wing was away from her desk and the only two figures entertaining the main space were Lawrence — whose limbs were elevated and suspended in a very interesting contraption with a huge bottle of Skele-Gro next to his bedside – and none other than his beloved little Hazel.

"_How on earth did you manage this, Lawrence?"_

"_Ah…just not meant for heights, I suppose."_ Lawrence's voice was hoarse and ragged and just positively awful. _"You know me; I belong in the dirt."_

Blinking slowly at the both of them, Hermione idly wondered if all boys were truly this stupid, regardless of the decade or their personal predisposition towards just or nefarious behavior.

"_Oh, hush,"_ Hazel chided, swatting at him so very lightly. _"It could have happened to anyone. Besides, the whole thing has left you looking a bit…rugged."_ She nodded, pleased with herself at the observation. _"I happen to like it."_

Hermione could make out Lawrence's blushing cheeks from her half-hidden spot near the entrance of the resting area and chose that moment to duck back out into a shadowed corner. The couple's awkward chatting continued and, at least by her observation, it was lighthearted and tinted with a fondness that seemed well enough on its own. The particular realization that at least _one_ thing seemed to be on track despite her muck ups helped greatly to muffle the yammering of her Elder consciousness.

With the lull in the discord in her mind, Hermione made a quick decision to flee to one of her private library nooks and try her hand at the rest she so desperately craved.

. . . . .

Sleep, thankfully, had not eluded her in those hours leading up to sunset. Hermione was able to lock down what faint internal whisperings had remained for a few hours of shuteye and awoke renewed and refreshed.

Hermione returned to the dorms after snagging a small snack from the kitchens and had taken up position in front of a long, full length dressing mirror to begin her preparation for the Masque. Already having slipped into the dress that she'd had Ruthie owl her, she'd moved on to tackling her makeup. It had been so many years since she had to worry about spells to set rouge and gloss or had to task herself with the completely demoralizing task of drenching her hair in potions and tonics to get it to smooth and twist as she commanded, but she reminded herself that she would make it all _worth_ it.

This was how Heather Darby and her troupe of resident bitches found her: muttering into existence some of the most persistent sticking charms she knew to tack her curls into an intricate updo.

The girls stopped short, just inside of the doorway and Heather Darby caught the eyes of Persephone in the very mirror she was occupying. _"Well, well!_ Callaghan, you certainly do clean up nicely, don't you?"

Hermione sharply flicked her wrist at the last curl that had been evading her magic for the past several minutes, finally succeeding in pinning it in place before turning to offer an even smile to the girl. She looked Heather up and down, noting the over-the-top sequin dress robes she was sporting. "Thank you," she replied, ignoring the slight against her with a practiced ease. "You're looking very nice tonight, yourself." Hermione let a confused look furrow her brow and she set the board. "Are you wearing that to the Halloween feast this evening? It's a bit on the extravagant side for it, don't you think?"

Darby scoffed, placed a hand to her barely covered bosom, and glided further into the room. "Oh, _no,_ dear. I'm—" She paused, chancing a look to her companions who appeared to be stifling signs of piteous laughter that—Hermione would have guessed—was directed at her. "—well, I suppose there's no sense in keeping it secret anymore. I'm attending Professor Slughorn's Halloween Masque with Tom Riddle."

The Heather girl tackled and swiped the pawn Hermione had laid out for her so beautifully that she found it much harder to pull the shocked and dismayed look to her face than it had been when she'd practiced earlier. "Th-the Masque?" she asked, a slight quiver in her voice.

"With _Tom_," Heather Darby confirmed, an ear to ear grin stretching across her fool face. She watched Persephone carefully, savoring the way the girl stood stock still, trying not to tremble and shake at the news. Darby allowed her eyes to linger before moving towards her corner of the room to summon a small expensive looking purse that clinked and clanked with the muted noise of glass vials. "I'm sorry, Persephone but, really, this is the sort of thing I was referring to before. Your _talents—"_ She said the word with a near tangible venom to each syllable. "—may be novel and praised by covetous professors, but sooner or later, the fact of the matter is that there is a hierarchy. A natural order of things. The sooner you understand that, the better off you'll be." Heather fiddled in her bag until she found the vial she was looking for and pulled the dipper from it to make a show of swabbing the liquid on her wrist and behind one ear.

Hermione tracked all the spots of skin where the liquid touched, hiding her delight from her housemate with a tremulous frown. "Tom doesn't think like that," she objected with less conviction than she meant to.

Heather finished dabbing to return her full attention onto Persephone and with an openly vindictive smile, she said, "Of _course_ he does, dear. We all do. Some are just better at hiding it than others."

Clenching her jaw and summoning the faint memories of those very same doubts that had plagued her throughout her original school years, Hermione made a very convincing show of the burgeoning tears she'd always sought to keep at bay once upon a time. Heather Darby's enjoyment over her perceived hurt was clear as crystal. Her distaste, her eager maliciousness was painted in every grinning line decorating the girl's smirking visage and, in so many ways, it reminded Hermione precisely of why she was there in the first place.

Heather, barely maintaining poise so as to not laugh straight in Persephone's face, opened her mouth to send another, ostensibly more hurtful remark her way, though what actually came was a sudden, sharp intake of breath. Heather Darby staggered on her feet, one arm out, hand swiping and clawing for something close and near to stabilize her balance.

"Heather!" One of the other Heathers exclaimed, moving in just in time to catch her friend as she collapsed in a heap of rouge and sequins to the dorm room floor.

"Heather! Oh my—what's going on?! What's wrong?!" Another of the gaggle yelled, crowding around the fallen alpha bitch.

With the attention now removed from her direction, Hermione let her face return to a more neutral state and moved in behind the girls. Peering over their shoulders, she saw the most wondrous sight of Heather Darby curled in on herself and moaning with growing tiers of pain. Her skin reddened and glistened as she broke out into a terrible sweat. Mounds of translucent flesh began to grow all over her skin, filling and swirling with pus and her minions both let out terrified shrieks.

"Maybe someone should fetch Madam Aubrey," Hermione said without the faintest hint of concern in her voice.

One of the Heathers shot up from where she'd been kneeling, so used to being ordered about, and took that as her task while nodding frantically to herself. The other couple girls remained, blubbering in a panic as their friend started to twitch and her moaning grew more frantic and pained.

Crouching next to the girls, Hermione placed a hand on both of their shoulders, giving them her most empathetic of looks. "You two go alert Professor Ogden as to what's happened. I'll keep her comfortable until Madam Aubrey arrives." With hardly any protest, the girls nodded and scrambled from the room to accomplish their task as well.

Heather Darby, to her credit, was clinging on to consciousness despite her growing temperature and the building, blinding pain. Still crouched, Hermione wrapped her arms around her dress clad knees and smiled down at the girl, eyes so frigid they alone would likely have been able to temper her fever.

With a wave of a hand and a silent incantation, Darby's mouth clamped shut and Hermione leaned forward to whisper near her cheek, "_Relax_, love."

Hermione plucked a decorative comb from Heather's hair and dragged it teasingly down her exposed arm. The teeth scraped tiny white lines into the girl's flesh until they came to rest butted up against a series of tough, liquid filled pustules. The bubbles of skin flexed and wobbled beneath the harsh pressure of her attentions, the boils denting and shifting but never breaking from the force.

The boils did, however, appear to be _**quite **_painful if the way Heather Darby's eyes were spasming in their sockets and the foam gathering at the corners of her mouth were any indication.

"I'll keep you company until they return…"

. . . . .

_Of all the idiotic…_

…_ludicrous…_

…_PETTY tactics!_

Tom was silently huffing to himself all the way from Ravenclaw tower back to the dungeons where Slughorn's overly extravagant party was already in full swing. He'd started well in advance to outfit himself in the finest and sleekest black dress robes that Abraxas' galleons could buy. He'd done a suitable amount of primping, he even added some extra touches to his serpent mask so as to look impeccable upon arriving early enough to pick up that nattering Darby girl so that he might catch Persephone's eye as she, too, attempted to meet with her accident prone escort only to come to find that the bloody witch had somehow already sabotaged everything!

_Preposterous…_

…_conniving…_

…_HARPY!_

"Tom! Tom, my boy! There you are!"

Slughorn's jovial voice interrupted his grousing and Tom finally looked up from the stone tiles he'd been glaring holes into moments before. When his eyes fastened onto Professor Slughorn, it was obvious the man was already several cups in to his own event despite the fact that Tom had not even arrived all that late.

It took a great deal of effort to pull his mouth into anything other than an agitated sneer, but Tom managed. "Professor," he greeted cordially, nodding to the older man's complete lack of a costume, "you look well this evening. Had I realized that my meager serpent guise would be due to compete with this extravagant and most esteemed Headmaster garb you've donned, perhaps I would have put more effort into my costume."

Slughorn blinked blankly at Tom before the compliment registered and he let out a bubbly laugh, waving him off good-naturedly. "Don't be ridiculous, Tom, the costume fun is just for you young ones. I'm a trifle too old to gallivant around in fantastical fripperies and fobs even under the guise of a _Masque_, don't you think?"

"Merlin, _no_," Tom replied smoothly, "after all, Professor, you can't be more than, what? Late twenties? Early thirties at _most_."

The older wizard guffawed and clapped Tom on the back. "Oh, _Tom,_ lad, you should save that for the witches, eh?" All at once, Slughorn's face sobered—all except for his glossy drunken eyes—and he prodded Tom in the chest with one stubby finger. "Speaking of _that._ Imagine _my_ surprise when our young Miss Callaghan arrived, not only _not_ on your arm this evening, but entirely _**alone**_."

"_Alone_, sir?" Tom intoned innocently. "Why, she'd already implied—rather indelicately—that she had other plans for the Masque that had not involved me." He feigned a look of intense disappointment and worry that Slughorn followed with a sympathetic understanding from one man to another. "Had I known—"

"Listen, Tom," Slughorn began, leaning in so closely that if Tom had been unable to smell the booze wafting off of the man before, he most _certainly_ could then, "I understand you may think that I know nothing of this…_young love_, as it were, but here is MY advice to YOU: _**suck it up**_." Slughorn stifled whatever reflexive reply was about to come out of Tom's mouth with an insistent shushing until his jaws finally snapped together with a clack. He continued in a near conspiratorial whisper, "Whatever it is that she did, whatever it is that _you_ did…suck it up. You'll both be better for it come the morning." And before Tom's sputtering really ever got started, Slughorn turned him to face a lone figure standing near a long refreshments table, nursing a lightly tinted liquid from a champagne flute. "You need not take my word, but I assure you, you don't come across as brilliant of a witch as _that_ one more than once in a lifetime."

Tom wanted to argue, he really, _truly_ did, but his eyes were having a very difficult time processing the jarring sight before him. The witch that he was still trying to comprehend as Persephone Callaghan, stood, arms awkwardly folded across her front as though she partially regretted her daring choice of attire for the evening.

The gown she tried to hide was strapless, wrapping snugly around her form in layers of elegant black fabrics with solid color broken up only by whirls and stretches of shimmering embroidery and dark crystals. The details of her dress bled down the length of her thighs until the skirt flared out into some sort of feather-light, sheer material that floated around her in a perpetual flutter as though she, herself, was born of a jet black flame. Perhaps the most entrancing piece before him was not her choice in dress robes at all and, instead, the contrast of her skin against the darkness of it all.

Her scar, he knew, would be hidden by her magic, but the rest of her lightly tanned flesh was out and exposed and likely the most delicate and _delectable_ thing he'd ever seen. The firsthand knowledge of the power that lay in that deceptively fragile figure led his heart in an elevated beating. His eyes traveled a path over the supple curves of her exposed shoulders and up that distractingly long, graceful line of neck. He could see, even from that angle, the cut and theme of her mask, and how it was worked in spider webs of bone white lace. The mask stretched across both of her dark, kohl rimmed eyes yet clung to just one side of her face to create a haunting image of a cool, skeletal visage accented by lips so deep a burgundy they may as well have been painted in blood.

_Hel. Persephone, namesake to one goddess of the underworld, had attended the Masque as a __**different**__ goddess of the underworld._

Tom felt a _terrible_ warmth blossoming in his chest alongside the unwilling admiration of her clever display.

He failed to notice, however, when the weight of his professor's hands left his shoulders to shove him in the direction of Persephone, his feet moving of their own accord to swiftly close the gap between them. As he neared, Tom was able to make out more of the familiar features of the witch he'd come to know and loathe and, as such, was able to pull himself mostly out of his absentminded stupor. By the time he finally reached her and she deigned to notice his presence, he felt almost confident that he'd collected all of his bearings.

Almost.

"Miss Callaghan."

"Tom."

"You are…a vision," he said honestly, preening a bit when she had to stifle her small, surprised look. "Imagine my shock, however, to see wondrous Hel having risen from her dark throne only to be standing here, in Slughorn's room of fanciful whimsies, entertaining a glass of—what _is_ that, anyway?"

"Apple juice, sadly. Because we are apparently _infants._"

"Of course," Tom agreed to the disdain evident in her tone more amicably than he'd agreed to anything she'd said in _weeks._ He continued with a look of concern upon his face that somehow still managed to be remarkably smug. "Whatever are you doing here by yourself, _Goddess_? What, pray tell, happened to your…'plus one?'"

Hermione pointedly ignored the title he purred at her in that smooth taunting timbre. "My escort, you mean? Funny you should ask. He came down with an unfortunate and unexpected affliction last night."

"Oh?" Tom drew back and tsked sympathetically and in a most convincing manner. "What horrid luck! I am so very sorry to hear it. May I be so bold as to ask what affliction found him so close to this event?"

Hermione drained her glass of the rest of its contents and waited for one of Slughorn's specially employed wait staff to flit by in order to rid herself of the thing before she leveled a serious and unamused look at Tom. "Stairs," she said flatly, "The _entirety_ of the stairwell that leads up to the astronomy tower as I understand it. Lawrence Pettigrew is currently in traction in the hospital wing waiting for his bones to reset and mend properly with the assistance of Madam Aubrey's potions."

"Ah," Tom hummed, caught a full glass of juice from a different waiter and took a long, thoughtful sip from the flute. He pursed his lips, running his tongue along the tops of his teeth and hollowing his cheeks as if savoring the flavor of the fruity drink before finally saying, "Stairs…slippery things. _Especially _so late at night. They do tend to keep the corridors so poorly lit for those that partake in the course—it's a shame, truly. And it is really but one reason why I am not taking astronomy this year."

"Yes." The single syllable was drawn out in a skeptical tone that matched the look she'd turned his way. Hermione watched as he finished off his drink and passed his empty glass off as well then re-folded her arms, tilting her head keenly to one side. "Forgive me—" She looked over his serpent inspired attire seemingly for the first time since they'd greeted one another. The smile at his predictability threatened to overtake her face, but she wrangled it in to provide him with a coolly smug look of her own. "—I can't help but notice that _you_ are unaccompanied as well, Mister Riddle. May I also inquire—"

"Boils." His expression sobered with his curt reply. "And fever. Or so I was told. Just before I had arrived to pick her up, in fact." The last was full of open accusation.

Hermione made a knowing _"mmmh" _noise, nodding. "Stairs, fevers, and boils. Pity. Must be the season for them, I suppose."

"I suppose."

"Well, I do hope that _dear_ girl's condition improves swiftly," Hermione said with feigned worry.

"You shall likely hear before I, she was one of your housemates, after all. However, the boy who answered my knock at the tower advised that she was in such terrible and excruciating pain due to the severity of her affliction, it's unclear how long it will take her to recover."

"That is so very unfortunate, Tom. You have my sincerest condolences. Poor, poor Heather Darby."

Tom watched her tartly smug expression for several heartbeats before he inhaled deeply, stretching to his full height and settling his dark stare upon her. "Miss Callaghan," he said, "I don't recall telling you her name."

Hermione was entirely unmoved and gave him the sweetest smile, coated with sugar and perhaps a touch of poison. "She was wrapped up in some gaudy number this evening when I returned to the dorms to get ready and was positively _gushing_ about coming to this party. She might have mentioned you. Call it an educated guess."

"Right," he said with a sneer. "Sometimes I do forget how small a world it is within these school walls."

"It truly is. In any case, I will gladly inform you of her status once I hear from the other Heathers since they will, most likely, have news sooner than either of us. You must be _so_ concerned, what with how close you two were before the dance and all."

"Yes." Tom smiled tightly and he really shouldn't have been savoring every lash and whip of malice Persephone cast his way with each comment about the idiot girl. He shouldn't have…it didn't mean he _wasn't_. "In an entirely unrelated subject, what did you think about Slughorn's lecture the other day regarding targeted brewing?"

"Targeted brewing?" Hermione asked with a slight shrug. "I'm afraid I don't recall that particular lecture."

"Perhaps it was in a book I'd read then." Tom rocked on his feet a moment, head tilted back and to one side as though he were searching for a specific memory. "Yes…yes it was. 'Most Potente Potions,' I believe. It was an _interesting_ article and, for some reason, made me think of you. Did you know that, when brewing a potion with a specific target in mind, if you were to, say, include an article belonging to them within said brew—nail clippings, eyelash, _severed limb,_ you know, those sorts of things—it would make the smallest dose _**exponentially **_more potent?"

Hermione had settled onto her painfully awkward shoes in as comfortable a fashion as she could. She had her arms crossed in front of her with one hand up and her delicate fingers brushing idly back and forth the pad of her bottom lip as she looked and listened intently to Tom. "Ahh, I _do_ think I may have read that one. Adding something to give it a little _kick_—" She curled her hand into a fist and mimed a "strong" motion. "—something to really focus it onto someone's essence."

Tom nodded, eyes narrowed. "That's the one. I believe there was something about it tethering the potion to said target, as well. No nasty little mishaps on the unintended that way. A little spill here or there? Not a matter, so long as you're not the target."

Her smile was catlike. "How positively clever, don't you think?"

Even when being at odds with her, Tom could not deny that she was a genius in her own right. Her intelligence was fluid and graceful and her darkness remained _delicious_. He hated her in that moment—hated _himself_ for being so internally gleeful and even somewhat physically "bothered" by just how clever it was.

With the paltriest air of aloofness ever, Tom said, "Indeed."

The pair of them looked at each other for a long stretch of minutes, neither of them budging from the spot they occupied together along a quiet section of the room. The dull chatter around them muted further until it was successfully a mere afterthought to either of them as they stood, half a pace away from the other, staring, silently, waiting for the other to make a move.

It was Tom that broke first with an irate sigh. One of his hands had wedged itself into a pocket while the other came up to smooth his fingers over the black silk cravat peeking out from beneath his coat. "Miss Callaghan…"

"_Mmm?" _Tom's expression soured and what parts of his neck she could see were starting to redden from his temper.

"I've sought to speak with you for many days now—"

"Then ask me to dance, Tom," Hermione cut him off before he could build any steam. "For I have _several_ words to share with you this evening."

Flustered by the command, Tom found himself aggravatingly unable to refuse and with surprisingly little protest, he took her hand and led her to the dance floor. The band had just settled back in, readying themselves to start a new song set and so when their waltz began to play, Tom adjusted the witch in his arms appropriately and began to move.

The two of them had barely just found the rhythm in their steps before Tom spoke. "Persephone—"

"If you even begin to _think_ about speaking to me regarding all that ridiculous 'charm' nonsense you've been on about for so many days, you can just keep that fool mouth of yours shut," Hermione interrupted immediately. Without even sparing him a second more for thought, she added, "Actually, _no_. _**I**_ am taking the floor. I have absolutely had it up to my eyeballs with your fatuous behavior. I have invested more years than you've _**lived**_ into planning and plotting every aspect of your rise to power. I have offered you your most splendorous dream on the proverbial silver platter with what is, in the greater scheme of things, a _microscopic_ request for your respect and your loyalty. And _yet_, even after helping you harness some of the darkest, most complicated magic accessible to you at this time, what is it that you repay me with?"

Tom made to answer but she came up sharply from one of their turns with a fierce look in her eyes.

"Your sophomoric attempts at _**killing me!**_" Hermione hissed lowly.

"I had not intended to _actually_ kill you—"

"No, right. You're right, of course. You've only intended to kill my date as of late. My sincerest apologies, _my Lord._"

With a scoff, Tom led them both in another swaying circle around the floor. "I can't be held accountable for that one. You _did_ give me the riddle containing his name."

"Yes, well," Hermione sniffed dismissively, "I hadn't really expected you to figure it out in time what with how much of an imbecile you've been recently. AND, if you _did_, I had not expected you to nearly bloody KILL the boy because you were jealous."

"I was _not_ jealous."

Hermione stepped out of the circle of his arms with the music, waiting until her steps brought her back in to snipe at Tom again. "You _**were**_. You were a jealous idiot."

"Persephone, you shall _STOP _insulting my intelligence or I'll—"

"You'll _what,_ Tom? Avoid me to death?" They swayed, she spun, and she gnashed her teeth at him once more on the return. "Your stupid temper is getting on my nerves and it is jeopardizing _YOUR_ life. If you _had_ killed that timid little shite, he'd never father one of your most snivelingly loyal followers that will be imperative to your reign, leading to a fault in the timeline whose repercussions I'd _**sincerely **_rather not have to deal with! Did you _ever_ think of that?"

That did cause him a bit of pause.

Six three-quarter time steps of pause, to be specific.

"…well, no," he admitted stiffly. "I was not aware—"

"Of COURSE you weren't! And _why?_ Because you were too busy evading me, ignoring me, and decidedly _**NOT**_ seeking my counsel, despite that being precisely the opposite of what we had agreed you _**WOULD**_ do during _all_ of our past private discussions!"

"Oh, forgive _me,_" Tom snapped tartly, jerking her with him in a tight circle around the edge of the dance floor. "But your instructions seem to be just a hair on the hazy side. _Maybe_, if you had not been so busy saturating my attention with your underhanded entanglement of my senses at each and every one of those meetings, your _commands_ would have come out more clearly!"

She scoffed with a roll of her eyes. "What are you bloody _on_ about?"

"I am speaking of the spells you've been working upon me! As IF you were unaware!"

Hermione was spun around in the outermost stretch of his arms and once she'd returned to press so near to his front, she dipped her head forward and bared her teeth in a ferocious snarl. "_**WHAT **_did I say about mentioning those bleeding _'charms'?!" _They spun again and her anger was crisp and clear once their steps resumed their more typical circling sway. "I've not touched your blockheaded self, Tom! Though you _are_ correct about one thing: I _have _been working. I have been working—_**HARD**_—to secure OUR future, trying to keep our key players alive, trying to cultivate that sad, pitiful shadow of a relationship between Lawrence and his oblivious teenaged twit, but meanwhile, YOU are sitting on your arse generally being a fiery little _twat_ over whether or not you want my help! _Perhaps_, if you weren't so egregiously short-sighted, you wouldn't actually _**need**_ me to assist you."

Tom's mouth came open to rebut her statement but he found himself jerked around with Persephone's steps as they grew angrier by the second.

"And _**THAT**_ is another thing, then, isn't it? Speaking of pitiful shadows of relationships, your constant wavering between heeding my guidance and dodging me in the bloody halls has reached its peak of tolerability!" Hermione was practically spitting her words in the harshest, most forcefully heated whisper she'd ever hissed out, to date.

The ripples of Persephone's magic, normally so tightly contained and metered, had finally bubbled forth and were fighting the bonds she placed upon it. At such close a proximity and with overwhelming clarity, Tom could feel the roiling, pulsating wash of power thrumming against every inch of his body. That the smattering of the surrounding crowd didn't seem to notice was a shocking abnormality. It was as though her magic had attuned itself to him, and only him and yet, as divine as it was to have that darkness sliding along his body like a touch starved lover, the steadily growing glow in the depths of her pupils bore more of an immediate concern.

"I am not some sort of awestruck teenager admiring your ability—_or lack thereof_—to grow facial hair!" Hermione growled through grit teeth. "I have commanded more from time and space than you can realistically _fathom_ to lend you my services! To be your salvation from your own faulty planning! And, if you're so much of a clueless buffoon that you think I am going to lie down and accept your casual dismissal after _**I**_ have done ALL this work, then Tom—_**THIS**_ is where you _twirl_ me!"

Hermione's thought derailed briefly in favor of her frustration over the fact that their steps had gotten a half beat off from the music and it was just ONE more thing that he was doing that served to make her crazy_**.**_

"I _**KNOW**_ how to waltz, you cantankerous termagant! Contrary to your myriad complaints, Persephone, I am-_**not**_-daft!" He _did_ know, and so he twirled the nagging witch while sporting the nastiest, most petulant scowl he could muster.

And she was so _**bloody**_ beautiful, Merlin damn it all.

His Persephone spun before him, the delicate lines of her limbs made longer and more elegant by clever drapes of fabric and lengths of tulle. Her magic continued to lick over his skin, sending electric sparks between them like a prickling of static discharge. It hummed through his body, through his bones, did things to him that he hated and craved all at once. Everything about her called to him and his thoughts circled back to this burning eyed beauty and her bold glare that could sunder mountains.

She was beautiful. And terrible.

And _insufferable_.

And _**infuriating**_.

And, he had to remind himself, the _bossiest_, most _stubborn_, most _**ornery**_ woman he'd ever set his sights upon.

Tom sneered, twirling her again with more of a firm snap to the movement to send her off balance out of spite.

"_**NO!**_" She exclaimed in a shouted whisper, wobbling free of his hold and stopping their dance to prod him right in the cravat. "_YOU_, Tom Mar-_**VO**_-lo Riddle, are just a capricious, impudent _BOY!_"

Tom stepped into her space, shattering any pretenses of propriety, meeting her fiery stare with his own. He worked hard to keep his voice level, "Perhaps if you weren't such a nattering hen—"

"A _hen?!_" Hermione squawked, the harsh whisper-shout cut off by the way Tom jerked her back to him to resume their dance. She waited all of a few beats before she resumed railing into him.

Tom, for his part, was leading them aggressively in a twirling, whirling pace alongside the music and around the dance floor. He pushed her to the very limit of her dancing ability which, if he were being honest, was surprisingly good. Though her feet kept up quite well, she was rigid in his arms. Her breast brushed his with every turn and sway and her anger was evident in every huff and puff of air that she was breathing down his neck. Her eyes were positively _furious_, blazing from within the rings of dark liner and the skull visage. Her burgundy painted mouth barely ever paused in whatever raging tirade she was spouting at him and the oppressive, reoccurring thought that kept flitting through his head was a simple: _Salazar she truly __**was**__ a vision. _

Tom's mind wandered to the imagery of this delicate witch razing the land of any that were so foolish to earn this sort of wrath. He imagined her luxuriating upon a throne fit for someone filled with such magical talents. They were very…_intriguing_ images to cross his mind at so inopportune a moment.

"_**Tom!"**_

He snapped out of the daydream, realizing that those ferocious fire-lit eyes were fixated on him and they'd stopped dancing again—likely due to the music having ceased—at some point in favor of lingering off to the side of the dance floor.

Hermione's glare narrowed impossibly further. "Have you even been listening to a _word_ I've just said?" She scanned his face long enough to see the faintest twitch of muscle that schooled his expression into something smooth and cool and aloof and her breath shuddered out of her in the most incredulous scoff she was capable of producing. "_Unbelievable._ You're even ignoring me while you've got your hands on me and I'm shouting in your face?"

"I've not been ignoring you," Tom said quickly as if to prove just that.

"Really? What'd I _just_ say then?"

"Before screeching at me about not listening to you?" He repeated to allow himself time to replay the "conversation" over in his head, hesitating just long enough to see her face beginning to turn shades. "You were vociferating, of course. Calling me names. Attempting to dress down my intelligence yet again in your repeated diatribe of limited insults."

Although the answer was correct, it was slippery and evasive and it pulled another exasperated noise from her alongside a halfhearted smack to his chest that he sidestepped easily.

The thoughts and memories of all her trials, all her efforts up to that point, mingled with the ever present and taunting laughter of that wretched life she was determined to leave behind until they'd finally boiled over. She'd done everything she could to make herself as technically appealing as she'd ever need to be to ensnare and enlighten such a monstrous man-to-be and yet she was still fighting this adolescent battle for his attentions _AND IT WAS DRIVING HER BATTY!_

"What do you _want_ from me?" Hermione said at last in a breath of tired exhaustion over him, over their arrangement, _**them**_, the whole thing! Her voice was low but the ferocity was still clear enough to make her point in the scant space between them. "I came here prepared to give you the power to create the world you crave and one minute, you welcome it, the _next_ you toss it aside! Well, I am _done_ trying to suss out your dizzying feelings on the matter, Tom. Answer me, plain and true: _**DO**_ **you or **_**DON'T**_** you want me?!**"

Her eyes widened, as did his, at the question.

_That was not at all the question she had MEANT to ask…_

"_**THIS,**_" she amended quickly, face turning beet red, "Do you or don't you want _**this**_?"

Tom's mouth opened and closed a few times as he attempted to formulate a witty reply but found himself lacking terribly. It seemed, at that particular time, that the task of formulating articulate words and noises was a task beyond his capabilities. Or, perhaps, more accurately, the fact that an unbidden answer had immediately sprung to mind that was dreadful and awful and horrid and _obviously_ UNTRUE – one that he had to first stifle to think up another – was actually the culprit.

"Am I…interrupting something?"

Tom was startled out of his floundering for a response by the sound of a deep, sensual voice that, by his record, could have been the audible equivalent to the sensation of a smooth draw of a perfectly aged wine. His lids fluttered in surprise, head turning to see a tall—_very _tall—pale skinned gentleman in disgustingly fine violet clothing, sporting a matching velvet half mask, sidle up next to Persephone. While he'd admittedly been distracted, the fact that he had not even noticed this man approach, along with his apparent familiarity with the witch between them, made Tom immediately suspicious. What's more, the bit where this individual looked at _him_ as though he were an intruder on a very private event raised his hackles.

"Sorry," Tom said, flashing that too proper, too polite smile that he'd perfected over some time, "Do I know you?"

"I rather think not," the man said in a warm timbre, "I am not, how one might say, _local_. I am an old friend of Horace's—Professor Slughorn as you know him. I was just catching up a bit with the old man before rejoining in the festivities." He swept further between Tom and Hermione, holding his hand out in one of greeting. "Ephram Lustgarten."

He didn't care for this man, Tom decided quickly. He didn't like him at _all. _There was something that was _off _about him. "Right. Brilliant, that," Tom pointedly ignored the proffered hand. "Quite good to have festive friends and what-all. However, if you would excuse us, my date and I—"

"_Date?"_ Hermione scoffed, loudly this time, reasserting her presence.

Tom's side-eye was fierce and immediate; his tone was one of warning. "Persephone—"

"Oh _no_, Tom. My 'date' is in hospital, remember? Or, at least, my _original_ date." She huffed, her anger renewed, and threaded an arm through one of Ephram's, who seemed thoroughly amused from behind his elegant mask and allowed himself to be tugged neatly to her side. "_This_ is my date. Allow me to properly introduce you to _Herr_ Ephram Lustgarten. I understand that the name may be unfamiliar to you, however, I _assure_ you, if you'd bothered expanding your sights anywhere outside of your immediate vicinity, you would know that his family has quite an impressive lordship in Berlin that he presides over."

Ephram cleared his throat and said, "Forgive me for the correction, Lady Hel, but I am, technically, no longer eligible to rule the land due to my particular 'ailment.'"

"Ailment?" Tom echoed the word, eyes darting between Persephone and Ephram. The man's presence was making all sorts of unwelcome feelings spike within his being and he just couldn't quite pull his attention from the way Ephram's hand covered her tinier one where it rested on his opposite forearm.

"Affliction, some might say?"

Ephram's clarification was puzzling and when Tom looked up to his face he saw that the man was smiling slyly with two very prominent fangs decorating his upper row of teeth. _"__**Vampire**__,"_ the word escaped him, not in surprise, but almost in relief; it was the missing puzzle piece to the picture of his discomfort and yet, knowing now what it was, was not truly relieving at _all._

"Don't be _rude!_" Hermione hissed. "And anyway, that is an archaic and idiotic law," this was directed at Ephram. "How stupid is it, _really_, to punish someone for having an unfortunate run in with the undead? It's not very well _your_ fault now, is it? If I had my way, I'd have such a barbaric display of rules stricken from the records! Revoked! What's needed is a complete reworking of the laws and guidelines."

"I am not complaining," Ephram said with a shrug. "Also, to be fair, there is a great deal of excitement happening in Berlin at the moment, even on the Wizarding side of things, for them to look into it."

Hermione further scoffed at the concept of _not_ being outraged over all the aforementioned ignorant acts of oppression and insanity.

Tom was not nearly so invested, nor was he at all amused by the odd tangent. "_Persephone!_" He hissed back at her. "How did you end up on the arm of a dusty noble?"

"_Tom!"_

"I believe I can answer that one," the vampire cut in smoothly, unfazed by Tom Riddle's offhanded insults. "When our Lady Hel arrived, so beautiful yet unattended, Horace and I simply could not abide the criminal idea of her remaining so. It was _fate_, truly. What better escort to the Queen of Hel than one of her subjects?" Ephram's broad shoulders shrugged in a most graceful manner and he patted the hand on his arm once again. "The rest, as they say, was history."

His neck felt hot. His cheeks too. Everything was scorching, actually, and all Tom wanted to do was chain the tall, lanky, creature to a tree and leave him out for the early morning sun so he could watch him writhe and twitch and _**burn**_ in agony until he was nothing but a disgusting, miserable little pile of dust. The thought made Tom smile a most frightful smile. "Aren't you a bit _ancient_ for someone as vivacious and _alive_ as our dear, sweet, delicate Persephone?"

Hermione blinked incredulously at Tom.

Ephram gave another of those languid shrugs and a smile that oozed far too much charisma than was natural. "With age comes wisdom, _young_ Master Riddle." Tom bristled. "And, for such a clever girl, I would like to believe that she would choose to look beyond these upsetting age lines to appreciate such things." He gestured sullenly at his immaculate face.

"Please," Hermione swatted at Ephram lightly, "you are stunning."

A derisive snort escaped Tom before he could stop it; not that he cared to. "Ludicrous," he muttered, "absolutely, _positively—"_

As though the very stars themselves were plotting against him, it was then that the band began to play, _loudly,_ over Tom's agitated grousing. Ephram visibly brightened and stopped paying any semblance of attention to him at all.

"_Ahh, wonderful._ Another waltz. I do so love waltzes. Would you care to dance, my beautiful Queen?"

Tom blinked rapidly, as though it would clear the red haze from his vision **any moment now.** He watched Persephone's jaw set and her chin jut ever so slightly skyward. She held his eyes defiantly and he knew her reply before the words even left her pretty little throat.

"I would be delighted."

And it was with that that Tom found himself sizeably snubbed by the most _**intolerable**_ witch ever to come into existence and her vampire pet.

The blinking didn't help with his haze.

Neither did the storming from Slughorn's party, fists balled and wand at the ready.

Nor did the destruction that found its way into the Room of Requirement's manifestation of wall to wall breakable objects and statues that bore a strong resemblance to a certain vampiric Lord.

It was a magical room; it would be fine.

. . . . .

A few hours later, Hermione trudged her way back to her tower barefoot, tired and drained from the evening. Her fancy dress shoes dangled from the fingertips of one hand while the other fisted in her hefty skirt train that had, at least at one point, _seemed_ as though it'd been a good idea. For being as old as he was, her vampire escort was certainly spry, keeping her dancing for most of the night and Hermione was almost positive that her feet were about to fall off at the ankles. That or simply explode. She supposed that his untiring state could be considered a boon as far as immortality went, though a part of her regarded it as nothing but a wide open range for a world of restlessness.

_No, thank you_, she'd thought to herself all night. She would stick with her non-undead version of immortality, thank you very much.

"_Persephone."_

Hermione looked up, pulled from her thoughts by that well known, and currently unwanted, voice. Her mouth twisted in a frown before she managed to at least pull it into a more neutral state at the sight of Tom Riddle, who had apparently been waiting for her perched at the bottom of the tower stairs. When he was sure it was, in fact, _her_, he rose and began walking forward.

"Tom," she said mildly, padding forward to meet him halfway with a cautious look, taking in his more casual appearance. He had since shed his mask, dress coat, and lost his cravat somewhere between then and now and Hermione was entirely unsure what to expect from him considering how they'd last parted. "It's late and you're far from your den…shouldn't you be tucked all snug and tight in your blankets by now?"

Her jab was weak and lacked snap, she knew, but the fact that he barely showed any inkling of a reaction to it anyway unnerved her immediately. He didn't speak, he didn't respond to her question. Not with sarcasm. Not with anger. _Nothing._ He just _looked_ at her. In fact, he was looking at her intently, his eyes scanning her from head to toe. They breezed over her form and figure, her dress, her shoes hanging from her fingertips, but mostly he lingered on her face, on the mask that covered it.

Feeling uneasy, Hermione shifted her weight from one swollen foot to the other, her gaze darting off to the side long enough for her to miss the slow, careful movement of Tom's hand coming to reach and tug her mask from its spot, dissolving the sticking charm with nary even a whisper. She stifled the gasp that tried to slip past and instead, swallowed, priming her throat to ask, "What are you doing here?"

Tom didn't answer her immediately, he just continued to _look_, to _stare._ His eyes were studying hers. He looked at her with an intensity that she wasn't sure she cared for, as if trying to memorize every fleck of color in her irises and though the urge to scoff and turn her head at his inspection was prominent, she steeled herself and held his gaze. When several seconds more of silence stretched between them, she opened her mouth to speak again. "I said, what—"

"I've been thinking."

Hermione's mouth snapped shut at the quiet, eerily calm response. Her head canted to one side in question. "Thinking? Here?"

"No," he said, finally dropping his stare to shake his head, the smallest of quirks to his lips visible with the quick motion. "I was thinking elsewhere and it led me here."

"Ah." She was watching _him_ now. She was eying how straight he stood with his shoulders back, head up, still as the night save for the smallest circling motion of his thumb brushing across the lace of the mask he still gripped. Hermione swallowed again, feeling something stir in her belly that was cold and sour. "May I inquire _what_ you have been thinking about since we last… 'spoke_?'_"

Hermione wasn't sure, but she thought that the corner of his mouth had twitched at her phrasing. For all she knew, though, it could have just been her imagination because there was no humor to be found in that steely expression of his.

Tom's chin tilted up at her question and the muscles in his neck and jaw flexed minutely before he gave a measured answer. "I was thinking about the things you said at the Masque. I came here to finally have a moment to speak with you. No wands. No spells. No music, dancing, or…_other_ interruptions."

"_Ah."_ That sour feeling began to fester. Hermione straightened, releasing her train and smoothing the fabric back into place, more for a need to do something with her hands than anything else. "I suppose I _did_ dominate the floor at our last opportunity…perhaps unfairly," she conceded with hopes that it would thaw the chill spreading between them. It didn't. "What is it that you have to say?"

"I am putting an end to our arrangement."

The words were something that Hermione had expected for some time now, since the start of the year, actually, however there was something about the _way_ he had said them—cool and calm and devoid of discernible emotion—that made the frigid air cling to her. She felt her skin prickle with gooseflesh yet canted her head in understanding and perhaps a bit of defiance.

"Really, Tom, don't be daft," she said with more confidence than she felt. "These foolish words tell me that you've not been _thinking_ at all. To end our 'arrangement' would be a fabulously idiotic way to give up on your cause. You can't do this without me." Her prodding had no effect.

"On the contrary," he replied evenly, "you yourself have told me that you come from a time where I have succeeded in my vision. If I have done so once, I surely can do so again." She began to retort but he was not through and Tom continued smoothly to clarify, "_Without_ your help."

Hermione's teeth clacked together with how hard they shut this time and she could feel the dark whispers in her mind growing. "_Come now,_" she heard her voice rise slightly, "I thought you were smarter than this! You _may_ succeed, but the wretched creature that you become, all wrecked and bereft of your mental faculties by your similarly poor decisions, is barely _you_ at all. Our arrangement was to protect this, to keep you as whole as you could be while we take our seats at the top of the ladder! The top of the _world!"_

"I can assure you, Miss Callaghan," Tom scoffed—his first outward display of emotion, "that I am in no need of direction from one who is clearly in such poor control of _her own_ faculties." And as though it required more clarification, he gestured at her, sweeping his arm from head to toe and back. "What's more, having experience with me in the future, you should know better than to think you could overwhelm me with such an embarrassingly coquettish display."

She was trembling, she was sure. Her palms were wet and her neck and back ached from how tight and rigid she stood.

"Be it a charm… or womanly wiles… or _whatever_ you sought to distract me with, I can assure you it _hasn't_ worked."

Those blasted voices were back, circling around in her mind. Her older consciousness was fond of laughter while the young one, the one that had been forcibly locked down and away and still managed to plague her in the nights, looking, working, waiting for the opening that would turn this entire operation completely onto its ear, spoke up too.

_Stop this madness!_ Said the quaint little Gryffindor. _Even your partner doesn't want this! It's time to stop it! Now! It's not too late!_

Hermione's eyes glazed as she tried to tune out the buzz of conflict in her mind. She settled the delinquents enough to refocus on the present. Her hands twitched at her sides, urging to wipe themselves on her robes but the stubborn piece of her resisted showing any sign of weakness before this boy. "I—"

She started to speak but Tom squared his shoulders, gave her another once over, and met her eyes with a cold, shuttered look. "I'd thought you were cleverer than all of that but perhaps your master was right and you're only good for the _one_ thing."

Hermione felt her breath hitch, her heart fluttering in her chest, her gut roiling with bile and worse things. She knew her gaze was frantic, darting from one of his features to the next, looking for the punchline, looking for the quip that would tell her that he was just being his normal, typical prattish self. Looking for _something_ to show that—

"The question of whether or not I _want_ you is irrelevant for, the fact of the matter is: **I do not **_**need**_** you**,"Tom said with his even and clear diction, never once removing his focus from her face.

She slapped him. _**Hard.**_

The sound of Hermione's slap echoed in the hall, sharp and heavy. Tom's head snapped painfully to the side but, aside from that, he did not move. If anything, his lack of reaction only made everything that much worse. He looked so calm, shoulders just rising and falling through his even breaths, even as her blood was pounding through her ears in a rush. She might have said something but she couldn't really be sure.

Her hands were trembling, palm stinging from where it had connected with his face.

Her cheeks were wet.

And he was just _standing_ there, looking cool, looking collected, looking perfectly handsome in his neatly tailored shirt and slacks.

So she hit him again.

And _**again**_, though past the first, the blows were hardly slaps and more of ragged smacks of desperation.

Each time she hit him, he barely budged.

Each time she hit him, her stomach turned.

Each time she hit him, she grew more and more aware of the heat in her face and the tears that had transformed from a slow trickle into a flood.

It wasn't until the last that he finally turned back to her, his eyes shining from the pain she'd inflicted and his cheeks sucked in as she watched him remain utterly, infuriatingly _calm._

"_**You**_," Hermione's voice wavered and cracked under the strain of her anger and embarrassment, "are a _**FOOL**_, Tom Riddle."

Tom took in a deep breath, watching as the witch—once upon a time _his_ witch—clumsily gathered her skirt and turned her face away to hide the emotions she could no longer even begin to reign in.

He had thought that the look of fear upon her face once before was a horrid sight, that there could be no worse thing to behold. Tom was, of course, grossly mistaken as the imagery of his Persephone, red faced with tears and a look so hurt and raw twisting her expression, burned itself into his memory with certain permanency.

Tom shut his eyes against it, bolstering himself against the poisonous instincts racing throughout his limbs. They would have him running after her to fall at her feet in a plea for forgiveness. They would make him slave to her, to her smiles, to her laughter, her happiness.

_Love is a weakness, _Tom reminded himself.

He couldn't allow it to fester any more than it already had. The fact that he denied its existence that long had allowed it to take root and grow and he wouldn't—_he __**couldn't**_ have it if he was to succeed in his plight.

Love was an incalculable force and so he would remove it from the equation entirely.

He reminded himself yet again of what was at stake, working himself further from the urge to find where she'd fled to all while desperately trying to ignore the lace he was now holding in a white knuckled grip. He allowed his gaze to wander over the intricate patterns of loops and knots that had adorned Persephone's face so perfectly. To say she had been more beautiful than he'd ever recalled seeing her would have been a lie; she was just as gorgeous as she'd always been. The only difference that evening was that she'd finally been dressed as a goddess, as the _queen_ of her domain, _**HIS**_ queen, not that filthy _vampire's_—

_**Love is a WEAKNESS.**_

"_Incendio."_

The mask caught fire and Tom watched the flames lick over the lace with violent swiftness. He felt the heat grow unbearable and the fire singe bits of his skin, but he held onto it still, transfixed on the colors that resembled the ember like light he would sometimes see in her eyes as she gazed at him. He held onto the mask—far longer than he should, he knew—until he could no longer ignore the pain and let the thing fall to the stone. He looked at his blistered skin, already on the mend thanks to his horcruxes, but the pain remained.

Tom turned his attention back to the small burning pile. "Love is a weakness," he murmured, the words sounding hollow even to his own ears. Sparing the mask one last glance, he turned his back on it and left it there to burn out on its own.

. . . . .

He didn't bother returning to the dungeons.

In fact, Tom lingered near Ravenclaw tower all night, tucked away in a part of a hall that appeared largely untraveled. He curled in his spot, back to one small column with his legs stretched out so that his shiny dress shoes planted against another. The reasons he made up for staying were flimsy and laughable and so he eventually just ceased all attempts at making them. Instead, Tom settled his gaze outward, through one of the open areas of the hall that looked out towards the viaduct, pretending to find interest there.

Tom's head knocked back against the column and muttered once more, "Love is a weakness…"

"_Yes."_

A single, solemn word sounded from out of nowhere, causing Tom to leap to his feet, his wand brandished in record time.

The owner of the voice materialized beyond his wand point as a silvery cloud of mist. It emerged from a solid wall to stretch into the figure of a tall woman with waist-length hair and a long flowing cloak. She carried herself carefully, head tilted, chin out, hands clasped elegantly at her breast as she floated by. Moving past Tom, she gazed out upon the landscape not bothering to acknowledge him beyond the act of speaking within his general vicinity.

"_Love," _said the ghost of Helena Ravenclaw,_ "can be a treacherous and deadly thing."_

* * *

**_A/N: _**Hello all! Here is a nice long chapter for everyone full of hurt fee-fees. I just started a new job today so I'm not sure how quickly the next update will come up, but I am trying to have at _least_ two updates a month. I still don't have a set update schedule, but that's at least a rough goal for new content. And, as a little reminder or a new news thing for those of you that have just started following along (thank you, by the way) I am on Tumblr! If you have questions or anything you want a pretty immediate response to, please hit me up at dulce-de-leche-go . tumblr . com as it is much easier for me to reply there than it is on FFNET (most of my internetting is mobile and the FFNET mobile for anything aside from browsing stories is balls). If you send me a PM here, I WILL get to it eventually, it's just usually not nearly as often. :(

ALSO! For anyone wondering about some visuals for the lovely couple's evening attire, I have a Pinterest board (which is woefully messy) at www . pinterest dulcedelechego / persephone


	26. Chapter 25 - Liminality (Book II)

**25 – Liminality**

October 31, 1943

"_**REDUCTO!"**_

Bark went flying into the cold night's air, exploding violently from where it had once been innocently adorning the tree that was now missing a huge chunk from its core.

"_**CONFRINGO! EXPULSO!"**_

The shouted curses flooded from Hermione's mouth, clear and crisp aside from the very light warble to her voice from the furious tears that had wrung her dry earlier. Explosions and blasts sounded deep from within the Forbidden Forest where she ravaged the terrain and she didn't care—she didn't _care_ who heard or _IF_ anyone even did! She didn't care who or _what_ would stumble upon her—she didn't bloody _**care!**_

"Treacherous SNAKE!" Another limb exploded off of a tree. "We had a _**DEAL!**_" The smell of burning dead leaves and brush permeated the air. "You can't just BACK OUT OF A DEAL!"

Hermione's wand swiped through the air another time followed by the sickening crack and groan of another of the old trees being devastated by her magic. She let out a series of disgruntled noises when her dress robes got tangled on various fallen branches that she'd been responsible for and furiously exploded the offensive objects after she was freed. Her anger had risen to the surface some time ago, bubbling over and overcoming the shame and embarrassment she'd struggled with immediately after fleeing from Tom Riddle's dismissal. Up to that very moment, Hermione had dutifully avoided the 'why' of her rather visceral reaction.

What he said shouldn't have mattered.

She didn't _care_ about him.

It's not as though they were an item—much to Horace Slughorn's personal dismay.

She was stronger than this pissant fledgling Dark Lord _anyway_.

She did not require his _acquiescence _to mold the future—she _**was**_ molding the bloody future!

He didn't **need** her? Well SHE didn't need **HIM**!

She would find another route to get her plans on track.

Tom Riddle was NOT the only way to achieve her goals.

She would find _another_ route.

_**Fool.**_

Hermione's agitated spellcasting halted. Her head tilted to one side, listening to the whisper of her older self that seemed ever so slightly calmer than usual before she growled and let her bare feet take her further into the forest towards a nest of brambles and roots. "Shut up," she muttered.

_**Silly, ignorant child.**_

"I _said,_ shut _up._" _Stupid, old, know-it-all_…_me_, Hermione groused internally, only realizing after the fact that the voice in her head likely would have heard it anyway.

_**Tom Riddle is the crux. . . **_

The voice continued as though it _hadn't_ heard…or at least in a way that she wasn't willing to linger on.

_**He is the reason you've come back so far. He requires your assistance to carve his path, regardless of what he claims. He is the entire reason you are here.**_

A patch of vines disintegrated at the swish of her wand and Hermione climbed through the dust pile of where they'd once been, igniting small patches of spider webs with hissed incantations as she continued to move. She had no destination in mind, just knew that the moment she stopped, everything would catch up and _that_ was something she was completely unprepared to face.

"HE is the silly, ignorant child!" Hermione snarled at the voice in a most petulant tone. "And for someone who supposedly needs my 'assistance,' he was _very_ insistent that he _doesn't_ need it. That's fine. IT'S fine. _**EVERYTHING IS BLOODY FINE.**_ I've no desire to be where I'm not needed NOR wanted!" The last made her stutter in her steps, a shaky breath escaping her as she thought of the words he so calmly declared to her beneath her own damned tower. Hermione swallowed down the sour taste on her tongue, continuing on through the forest, winding out the tightness in her chest. "He doesn't need me and _**I**_ certainly do NOT need to ride his coattails to my freedom in the future! I'll figure it out on my own. I don't _**need **_or _**want **_him either! _**CONFRINGO!**_"

Hermione was sure she heard a disembodied snort echo within her own skull.

_**If you knew the lies you tell. . . **_

"_**IT'S FINE!" **_And then she was shouting into the small clearing she'd stumbled into. "That little shite doesn't need my help to carelessly delve into darkness and pop out on the other side as a monstrous beast of a man! He did that all fine on his own the first time! He's—"

Hermione's words died in her throat as, when she went to place another foot in front of the last, the world beneath her lurched and a harsh flicker of images passed behind her eyelids. Her stomach turned and an intense pressure pounded in her head, blinding her from the pain. Her knees wobbled, buckling under her weight.

'_I'm ready to die.'_

The voice was unmistakable and the pain in her head grew more intense at the sound of it.

Cracking open an eye, she tried to make out the fuzzy images before her. Hermione was certain she was hallucinating when the shaking, shimmering flickers of shapes she hadn't seen in…in a long, _long_ time flashed in and out of sight. The harder she tried to focus on them, the more determined they seemed to evade her; it was as though the pristine images only ever existed on the outermost edges of her vision.

'_Does it hurt?'_

'_Dying? Not at all…quicker and easier than falling asleep.'_

The strength of the whispered words came and went, reminding her of someone idly scanning radio stations. Hermione's breath caught in her chest, the voices from a life that had burned away in the fires of war hit her so hard that she felt the intense and immediate desire to vomit.

So she did.

She felt the splatter of it on her bare arms and the pressure in her skull went from mild, to agonizing, to _unbearable_. Bursts of light popped in and out of her narrowed sight and Hermione struggled to even stay upright on all fours. She vaguely registered the taste of copper on her tongue while trying to make sense of any of it.

'_Harry Potter: the boy who lived…come to die.'_

Hermione swallowed down another wave of bile, eyes rolling, fluttering in their sockets as they tried to pinpoint the new silhouette some distance away. This image came into focus more readily. His pale, vein streaked skin, gleaming red eyes, and lipless mouth curled into a smug, utterly self-satisfied smile and Hermione recognized the Tom Riddle of her future—the Dark Lord Voldemort.

She felt her heart jump and an ache of loss panged in her chest at the sight of him.

Her mind reeled and boggled over _what_ exactly she was witnessing; over _why._

Sounds of several spatters drew her attention down, to the puddle of sick, to the dried leaves and soil around it, to where dozens of drops of what her foggy mind registered as blood—_her blood—_were dripping. Shakily, Hermione shifted her weight onto one arm so she could bring her fingers to her face, tracing back to the source of this blood. When she pulled them away again, she realized there was a steady stream of it coming from her nose.

…_and Merlin…her head…_

…_her head…_

'_**Avada kedavra!'**_

Hermione flinched, the ferocity of the spell uttered and aimed in her direction made her instinctively crumple, hitting the ground fully with a groan. Her eyes had shut tightly of their own accord but she still somehow saw green battering against the backs of her lids. She heard the collapse of not one, but two, bodies and her chest tightened again.

_..her head…_

Weakly, she reopened her eyes and found herself nose to nose with the suddenly crystal clear picture of the body of Harry Potter.

The bile found its way up again, choking her, mingling with her blood as it all puddled beneath her cheek.

She wanted to look away.

Hermione desperately wanted to turn her head, to make this inexplicable scene dissolve and burn it from her memory, but she couldn't. The harder she tried to make it all stop, the more powerless she became.

Another flickering outline, a woman, one she had known before—_Narcissa Malfoy_—her image stuttered in and out of existence all while her dead friend remained very, very real. Hermione couldn't wrap her mind around it, she had trouble discerning why—_why, why, __**WHY—**_and then she saw it.

A quick movement of Harry's lips.

A slight flare of his nostrils.

The barest nod of his head.

Hermione's eyes rolled up towards the distant figure shrouded in familiar robes, shakily gathering himself to his feet. He was the only other clear image in the clearing of fading, fuzzing people-shaped outlines.

…_Tom…_

Lord Voldemort wobbled on his feet, swiping a hand at the ever persistent doting of Bellatrix Lestrange to hiss expectantly at the Malfoy matriarch.

'_Dead,'_ the shaky image of Narcissa Malfoy proclaimed as she stood, facing a dark robed creature in the distance.

She felt even more sickened when she realized her first urge was not of elation that her friend was alive, but was an inexplicable desire to call out to the Dark Lord, to name Narcissa's treachery, to declare her a _**liar**_.

It hit her like a ton of bricks.

…_T..om…_

Her Harry _had_ died.

…_not dead…._

_Her_ Harry had never come out of this forest alive.

_...To…m…he's not…dead…_

What _was_ this?

_**Worry not, Hermione. . . **_

That voice, the one calling from _inside_ her head, echoed serenely—_too_ serenely. It was more calm and collected than the sliver of consciousness from her Elder self had ever been.

_**You just need a bit of. . .perspective.**_

Hermione coughed, something thicker than stomach acid and spittle coming up this time. Her eyes squinched shut, pressure in her head mounting, causing sparks of light to burst and swim behind her eyelids. This wasn't right. _None_ of this was right. There was something entirely _wrong_ about the lilting voice in her ears.

"You're…not…" The words leaked from between Hermione's gritted teeth. "You're not—"

_**Allow me to assist you.**_

The ground beneath her lurched once more and, as quickly as it had come, the oppressive, dizzying force that had been pressing in on her lifted suddenly, leaving her a different kind of light-headed. A great weight felt as though it'd been torn clean away off of her weakened form, though she remained curled and shivering on her side. The flickering images, the fading voices, they'd all seen fit to bugger off and the sultry, resonant voice within her head had gone silent as well.

Everything had gone silent; silent and dark.

_So very silent and dark._

It was a final, fleeting thought within Hermione's mind before the silence and the darkness and the _cold_ coaxed her into their folds.

. . .

November 1943

The days that Tom had either missed or been late to class had been very few and far between since he'd been admitted into Hogwarts. In fact, one could count the total number of incidents combined on one hand. If pressed, he would not be proud to admit that he'd finally added a fifth digit to the count and that there was but _one_ person in the world he would blame for it.

He wouldn't say her name, though. No. He'd mentally sworn off speaking the name aloud in much of the same superstition that had run rampant through certain areas of ancient Greece. Calling upon her name would bring ill fate and ruin…so he didn't.

Others, unfortunately, had no qualms with it. As he provided his Arithmancy professor with the humblest of apologies for his tardiness – which was not at all an attempt to not be paired with the _girl_ at start of class; he wasn't _avoiding_ her…he was _there,_ after all – she spouted off the name as though it were nothing.

"Mr. Riddle," she said in an all too transparent manner, "have you any idea where Persephone is this morning?"

His eyes narrowed and it was only then that he realized the witch in question was nowhere to be seen. Tom eyed his professor suspiciously as she looked like she had something else that she wanted to ask him but it was far beyond proper to voice. He vaguely wondered just how many of their professors seemed to think that he and Per—that _they_ were a 'thing.' Considering how generally unobservant they were about anything that actually mattered, he suspected the number was greater than he cared for. "I'm sorry, Professor, but no. I've no idea, actually. Why do you ask?"

The trickling, tingling sensations cascading down his spine were not any sort of signs of anxiousness or concern over the whereabouts of the nameless witch-they weren't.

His professor seemed taken aback by that response, letting her stare linger on him until she was satisfied with the apparent lack of deceit—as if she could tell either way—eventually shaking her head. "No reason, Tom, no reason."

_The reason is, _Tom thought to himself_, because that witch has nearly as spotless of an attendance record as mine._

The only times she'd missed classes were the days she'd been utterly incapacitated and warming a cot in the Hospital Wing.

Tom's tongue ran over the tops of his teeth, his vision blurring into an unclear haze as the professor's voice faded into a dull hum. He tried to pay attention, quill scribbling across parchment in as methodical a fashion as it ever had before, but the fact that not one other person in that classroom gave a moment's pause as to the whereabouts of their classmate sat heavily in the forefront of his mind.

The topmost performing student in that class already, tied with him, and not a _one_ paused to think it odd or amiss or even slightly concerning.

He was stirred from the errant thought by the snapping of his quill, the nib flying off somewhere he couldn't spot. Cursing quietly, he hefted his bag up to sift through for another, all the while shaking off his earlier…observations.

He was _done_ with that girl. _**DONE.**_

. . . . .

Abraxas settled into his typical seat in second period, moving a bit groggily thanks to the heavy imbibing from the private Slytherin festivities the night before. He'd preempted the foreseen consequences with a gratuitous dosing of hangover prevention potions that he and Nott had smuggled in along with one too many bottles of his father's best whisky, yet, as he found that morning, there was only so much magic could do.

_At least,_ he thought blearily, _it's one hour closer to over._

Methodically, Abraxas extracted his charms book and an assortment of small items and knick-knacks that had been on that year's supply list. He went about arranging them all in parallels or strict ninety degree angles near one another in a way of keeping himself occupied on something other than wanting to expel his breakfast onto the desk before him. He was nearly done with his knolling efforts when the class bell rang and startled him out of his daze. Though the professor started in on his lesson, Abraxas couldn't help but feel as though something was _off_.

It wasn't until Professor Flanagan asked his first question of the day that he realized what it was.

Suddenly a great deal more sober than he'd been a minute earlier, Abraxas stared at the empty seat across the classroom to find it distinctly devoid of a confident, stiff armed hand that he was so used to seeing being the first thrust into the air. He straightened in his seat and, as casually as he could, chanced a few glances around the room to see if his Lady had seated herself anywhere else for their class. When he found no trace of her, Abraxas felt a gnawing anxiety growing in the pit of his stomach.

_Tom had it in his mind to speak with her last night…_

That anxiety became just a touch more pronounced.

Tom had not returned to the dorms the night before, not that he'd seen or heard, anyway. Abraxas doubted his master would miraculously disappear from classes the day after someone like Persephone Callaghan disappeared, though.

And _yet_ he hadn't seen Tom _or _Persephone at breakfast that morning.

His thoughts lingered on all the possibilities, _especially _after what had happened to that loser student that had supposedly been her date to Slughorn's party. It was that last bit that caused him even _further_ pause.

_No…Tom wouldn't. He fancies her too much…mumbles her name in his sleep even…_

His eyes drifted again to the empty spot where his Lady had been since the very start of the year and he frowned deeply.

_And yet…_

. . . . .

Tom would not be available to confer with – if he _did_, in fact,even show up – until the lunch hour, so, having a free period before then, Abraxas made to keep himself busy by flying out all his excess energy on the Pitch. He donned his Quidditch uniform and took to the sky, sharing the space only with a select few others that appeared to have the same idea. Abraxas spiraled, he bobbed and weaved through a handful of invisible opponents. He chucked a quaffle back and forth through an unmanned hoop, tossing and zipping around to the other side to catch it and start the looping practice over again. Mostly, he entertained every action he could think of to nudge his mind further and further from the tumultuous thoughts regarding Persephone Callaghan's unexplained absence and the undoubtedly uncomfortable discussion with Tom Riddle that he'd been trying to bolster himself to have for the past hour and change.

Abraxas stretched out on his broom, one arm out and poised to snatch his freshly thrown quaffle out of the sky when he heard it.

"_**Abraxas. . ."**_

He startled, the ball tumbling off his fingertips as his whole body tensed at the voice. Head whirling around to the Slytherin stands, Abraxas scanned the seats for the figure of a bundled up Persephone, his heart thumping excitedly with what _should_ have been relief but served to be an inexplicable anxiousness instead. Imagine his confusion when there was no body for him to behold.

Squinting, he hovered on his broom, eying the bleachers hard from one side to the other, top to bottom, his face scrunched as though any of it would help him track down the source of his name on the wind. Thinking he must have imagined it, he swiped a calloused hand across his brow. Abraxas resolved to head inside soon to pester the elves for an early snack in order to stave off whatever midday hallucinations had come from his woefully empty stomach when it came again like a gentle caress down his spine.

"_**Abraxas. . ."**_

Abraxas' entire body swiveled, an unseen force pointing him towards the Forbidden Forest. His eyes immediately began searching the tree line for any sign of her, hands tightening their hold on his broomstick as an unsettling chill trickled down his spine. "Miss Callaghan?" her name left him in a quiet question and he immediately chastised himself. _Idiot_, he thought. _She certainly wouldn't hear you mumbling from up here—_

"_**Abraxas, please—" **_

The choked plea sounded loud and strong, as though it were humming from inside his very head and he spared absolutely no thought for the strangeness of it before kicking off the nearest goalpost and soaring directly into the forest.

Abraxas touched down on the forest floor, drawing his wand from his boot and carting his broom along with him at his other side in preparation for a hasty exit. "Persephone!" he called, her name being swallowed down by the sudden oppressive shade beneath the trees.

He hadn't expected a response, not really, so the disconcerting—and probably inhuman—shifting of brush and branches somewhere off to his right had his fingers clenching more tightly around his wand. Schooling his nervousness into a tight grimace, Abraxas kept moving farther in, making more of an effort to quiet his steps while still making haste.

"Persephone," Abraxas hissed into the eerie stillness of forest. "My Lady, it's _me_, Abraxas. Please, are you hurt? If so, I need you to—"

A frigid gust of wind whipped up in front of him, cutting off his words and the cold slicing through his layers of gear to send goosebumps prickling to life all over his skin. It was short but strong enough to make him falter in his steps, shutting his eyes against the blast. Once it had abated, Abraxas reopened his eyes, his breath catching in his throat at the path it had revealed and the broken and scorched trees and earth that lay beyond. Without hesitation, he climbed back onto his broom and sped into the depths of the forest, frantically searching the grounds for any sign of Persephone Callaghan.

. . . . .

Lawrence took a long swig of one of his many prescribed draughts as Madam Aubrey dutifully watched. He held the potion in his cheeks, unsure if the burning sensation in his throat would be more or less forgiving than the wretched taste of the liquid on his tongue. It was the movement of his stern faced caregiver, readying herself to do _something_ with that wand of hers that would make him swallow that decided for him.

He gulped down the potion and coughed out a loud _**BLEAGH**_ in its wake.

"Will he be well enough to return to classes soon, Madam?"

The Mediwitch eyed Lawrence a moment longer, making sure he wasn't about to cough back up his treatment, before smiling and saying, "Yes, dear. Young Mister Pettigrew has made excellent recovery time. At this rate he should be back to the dorms in another one to two days."

In the midst of his dramatic hacking, Lawrence managed a tight smile. He swiped his mouth with the back of an arm and managed to not grimace at the taste still lingering on his tongue. "See, Hazel? Nearly right as rain. No need for you to keep coming here." At the sudden drooping of her expression, Lawrence hastily added, "N-not that you're not wanted! I-I-I mean…"

Madam Aubrey blinked at the young couple and rolled her eyes, excusing herself back to her station to do…anything else. She was halfway back to her desk when the doors to the Hospital Wing were kicked open and Abraxas Malfoy tromped in, eyes flicking around the room until they settled on her.

"Mister Malfoy!" Aubrey cried out in a startled shock. "What on _EARTH—_" She didn't realize the frantic look in his gaze until he'd closed the distance between them in a scant few steps and she finally took note of the bundle in his arms wrapped in what appeared to be his Quidditch robes. "Oh my Merlin!" She gasped. "What happened here?"

"I-I don't know, Madam, I-I found her in the woods—"

"The _**woods**_?!" The witch clicked her tongue and it seemed to snap her head back into place. "Quickly, here, over here on the cot. Place her down—_yes_—there."

Madam Aubrey shooed Abraxas away from the form of Persephone Callaghan with more than a little effort, very nearly drawing back from how cold her skin was to the touch. The boy hovered at her heels with every step she made, his grey eyes wide and locked on the girl he'd brought to her barefoot and, aside from his robes, draped only in a fine evening gown that was partially shredded by brambles from the forest. She passed her wand over the girl, murmuring incantation after incantation that cleaned crusted blood from the corners of her mouth, from beneath each nostril, and set scrapes and gashes that looked to be, thankfully, not at all caused by any of the questionable wildlife lurking within the forest, to mend.

Once the worst of it seemed to have been dealt with, Madam Aubrey turned back to the pallid Abraxas. Her initial glare softened. "Mister Malfoy." When there was no response, she snapped her fingers several times before the boy's nose until he jolted and blinked at her with the most heart stopping, stricken look upon his face. "Mister Malfoy," she said again gently, "are _you_ alright?"

Abraxas thought about it a moment and nodded dumbly, eyes drifting towards the figure on the cot once more. "Fine. I'm fine. Is she—"

"Miss Callaghan will be just fine," she said, expertly concealing any doubts she had to the contrary until her more thorough examination. "I need you to go quickly and fetch the Headmaster. Alert him and Professor Ogden as to what has happened. Can you do that for me?"

He swallowed thickly, looking up to the Mediwitch, over to Persephone, and back. "Y-yes Madam, of course."

Abraxas was once again staring at the far too still, far too cold, far too shallowly breathing for his tastes Persephone. Madam Aubrey frowned, braced a hand on either of his shoulders and ducked her head into his view. "You're sure you're alright, Mister Malfoy?"

Nodding, he politely tugged free of her grip and fled from the wing.

"_Lawrence? Lawrence! MADAM AUBREY!"_

Aubrey heard a surprised yelp from across the room and turned to see what in the great green earth had happened _NOW_. What she was met with was a previously hardy looking Lawrence Pettigrew who'd lost all color to his cheeks, was blubbering nonsensical babble, and staring with terrified eyes at the newest patient who lay several cots away.

"Sleeping draught! There! On the nightstand!" Utterly out of patience, she flicked her wand so the vial in question floated into the hands of the panicked girl at Lawrence's bedside. Within seconds, Hazel was insistently coaxing the liquid down his throat and, at least for the meantime, Lawrence's sudden panic attack subsided.

_Sweet Merlin, this school is falling apart._

. . . . .

In the Great Hall, Tom and the others were gathered at their usual spots having lunch in relatively easy silence. The question of Tom's late night and morning absence was tangible in the air between them all, though not a one of his minions dared to actually voice it. Someone—Tarquin Nott—did, however, muster the courage to ask about the whereabouts of their fellow housemate, Abraxas.

As though speaking his name brought him into existence, the group of them watched a blond mopped blur of green robes and Quidditch pads burst through the large doorway and stride with great haste straight up to the dais at the head of the Hall. Tom looked up only after his followers had started murmuring excitedly to one another and just barely caught Headmaster Dippet and the Ravenclaw head of house exchanging tight looks and excusing themselves from the room. It was then that he noted the form of Abraxas Malfoy who turned from watching the adults exiting hurriedly to make way to their table and the very spot at which _he_ sat.

Tom's eyebrow rose higher and higher the closer Abraxas came. Unable to stifle the sneer at the sight of that terrible uniform, Tom intoned flatly, "I thought it customary to wash up before joining us after a practice, Malfoy."

"Tom, it's Persephone, she—"

The blatant use of _**that name **_that every-bloody-person kept throwing at him that day finally triggered a low, reflexive growl from Tom. "We will _**not**_ be speaking about that witch any more, Abraxas, do you understand?" He snapped defensively in as loud a voice as he could without drawing any more attention than the awkwardly looming boy already had.

Abraxas was floored by his reaction. It simply didn't _compute_ based on how much Tom had been fussing about the witch leading up to Halloween. His brain hadn't quite caught up to his mouth or the rest of him when he flopped heavily into the spot next to Tom and words insisted on still fumbling past his lips. "But _Tom_," he argued, "I found her, _hurt_, in the Forbidden Forest! She was—"

Tom stiffened at the word "hurt" but exhaled calmly through his nose and said, "I don't _care_ how you found her or even that you _**did**_. She is no longer my concern."

"And that's not a _bit_ shirty then, is it?" Abraxas' immediate snarl of a reply was something the likes of which none of them had ever witnessed before—_especially_ Tom. "I suppose we'll also call it a coincidence that _you_ were the last to have seen her before I find her all scraped up and freezing in the middle of a warscape in the woods then, eh?_"_

If he'd been more in his right mind, he would have seen the surprise on Tom Riddle's face. As it was, Abraxas didn't realize exactly all that had escaped him until his master's face had lost any and all traces of the polite disdain it always held for creatures around him and turned into a stony mask that exuded the extremes of his displeasure. Abraxas felt his heart leap into his throat and, at last realizing his error, he dropped his gaze immediately.

A tight, uncomfortable silence stretched between them until Tom's icy voice broke it. "Precisely _what_ are you implying, Abraxas?"

His nostrils flared in frustration at his own fear of the wizard in front of him, hands clenching to fists making the leather of his gear creak with the movement. Abraxas swallowed, tongue thick in his mouth, and he shook his head. "Nothing, my Lord. Please, forgive me." He shut his eyes against the pounding of his heart in his ears and knew, he just _knew_ what kind of fate he'd secured for himself in his moment of weakness. Controlling the shake to his voice, Abraxas pushed through the sour taste of bile on his tongue and groveled as well as he could in the midst of a room full of people. "I-I just meant that...the Headmaster may have…_questions_ for you once more details of your last encounter with—" He winced at the near misstep. "There may be questions."

Tom eyed him for a long, _long_ time before blinking one equally long, slow time.

At last, Tom's carefully controlled tenor hissed throughout the space, quiet enough that none outside their circle would hear but firmly enough to instill the appropriate amount of sheer, absolute terror in every one of his followers. "I will show you leniency this _**one**_ time, Malfoy, with consideration to your previous service and your—" He looked Abraxas over as if he were a piece of shite on his shoe. "—heightened state of barbarism coming off of the pitch. However, if you or _any _one of you, for that matter, mention _her_ to me again, you will report to the Room every evening for drills at my hands until I am satisfied with your punishment. Is that understood?"

A murmur of "yes" sounded from all at the table, all except for Abraxas whose jaw and shoulders were still taut, muscles working through the clenching and grinding of his teeth.

"Abraxas?"

"Yes…my Lord," Abraxas said finally.

"Brilliant. Now go clean yourself up. You smell of sweat and the filth you touched."

The corners of Abraxas' mouth twitched toward a scowl but he bowed his head slightly still. "Yes, my Lord." With that, Abraxas hoisted himself to his feet and fled the presence of them all lest his temper and concern for Persephone Callaghan get him slaughtered for all to see.

The remaining of Tom's minions shared a most curious look with one another around the table at the new development. There was a mixture of ambivalence, confusion, and anticipation that, if Abraxas had still been in attendance, he would have noted as very concerning. Tom, for his part, returned to his meal and if he, perhaps, stabbed his fork into the meat on his plate more firmly or aggressively than usual, well…nobody commented on it.

. . . . .

Abraxas showered, changed, and played out the remainder of his day as though he hadn't already scheduled his execution by snapping at his master during their lunch hour. Just another solid day of questioning his personal decisions and fearing for his well-being - nothing new about that piece of his life really. He did at least find that the day had passed much more quickly than he'd realized as his thoughts were largely occupied on getting to the Hospital Wing after classes.

Madam Aubrey had been reluctant at first to allow him to visit, knowing full well he'd not already taken his meal in the Hall as he'd said, but she'd finally, begrudgingly agreed if only he was out before curfew. Abraxas quietly moved a chair to Persephone's bedside and settled into it, staring somberly at her unconscious form. He spared a glance once or twice over his shoulder to see Madam Aubrey shuffling about the room, cleaning one thing or another and generally tromping about making an indelicate ruckus, and it only served to irritate him more that for all her noise-making, Persephone's form remained quiet and still.

His palms itched to take her hand, his fingernails scraping at the weave of his trousers over his knees where his hands rested as way of trying to dissuade himself of doing just that. Abraxas wasn't fooled by whatever his Lord was blustering about this time. The way she'd gotten under Tom's skin so much, so quickly, the way he lost his composure at the drop of a hat on the topic of _her_—not that Tom had ever been much of one for "calm" per se, but things certainly had gotten much more chaotic since her transfer—at least to him, the signs were obvious. Which made the desires and urges he'd shamefully allowed to flourish within the privacy of his own bed curtains much more dangerous to his health than his stunt earlier that day.

That thought made Abraxas' heart skip a beat and a distinct lump lodge itself in his throat.

_That's right. Already signed that warrant then, haven't I?_

"Hanged for a dragon as an egg," Abraxas mumbled, took a deep, steadying breath, and reached out to take one of Persephone's limp hands between both of his own. He was surprised at the immediate wave of relief that washed over him as soon as he felt the more normal body temperature emanating from her skin than when he'd brought her in. He released a heavy, shuddered sigh, head drooping and he briefly pressed her knuckles to his forehead.

_Fuck._ _Thank Merlin…_

His grey eyes darted up to look at her sleeping face and he chanced the barest press of lips to her fingertips before returning to just cradling her hand in his. "I hope you will forgive my boldness when you awaken, my Lady, but you will never, _ever_ enter that forest alone again," he spoke softly as though she could hear, his thumbs tracing circles across the back of her knuckles. "And, actually, I've been thinking all day about what summoned me to you and, certainly after seeing you there, I know it can't have been you…although…frankly, I find that I don't care." Abraxas swallowed thickly and let out another sigh. "…just as long as you plan on waking from this, I truly do not care."

Abraxas lost time there, stooped by Persephone's bedside, murmuring his idle one-sided conversation next to her. The dull ticking of the wall clock that had been so loud between Madam Aubrey's rustling around eventually faded into an afterthought even as the hour grew later and the cold chill of the evening seeped into the ward. He'd taken to rubbing soothing patterns over her skin, trying not to think of the choices that may present themselves to him should it turn out that Tom _was_ behind this all. To choose between his Lord who promised power, yet would likely slaughter him if he had eyes in that very room, or stand by his Lady who was nearly as blindly infatuated with said aforementioned Lord?

_Rocks…hard places…all that rot._

Finally having run out of words to fill the space with, Abraxas let his eyes wander over the mending job Madam Aubrey's spells had done. He couldn't see the bulk of what injuries he'd remembered peeking from anywhere beneath the soft cotton chemise she'd been changed into, but what scrapes had decorated her neck and arms seemed tended to at least. Sighing to himself, he shook his head again, grateful that she had been found. Absently, he drew her hand towards his lips again, intent on pressing another light and thankful kiss to her skin when a series of darkened marks on the underside of her arm caught his eye. His brow furrowed, wondering if the Mediwitch had missed some of her cuts after all. Abraxas turned Persephone's arm gently towards him, eyes scanning over the jagged slashes carved into her flesh once, twice, his grey eyes going wide on the third.

"Mister Malfoy?"

The sudden sound of his name jolted Abraxas into tucking Persephone's hand back at her side and nearly stumbling in his efforts to come to his feet a more appropriate distance away from her cot. Once he managed to right himself, he saw Madam Aubrey standing near the edge of the drawn privacy curtain, wearing a very odd expression of interest as she stared at him. He felt a heat climbing into his face and apologized automatically. "Forgive me, Madam Aubrey, you surprised me. I didn't hear you approach."

The Mediwitch straightened suddenly, a little shake of her head clearing the expression at once. She smiled coolly at him but stayed hovering near the curtain. "My apologies, didn't mean to startle." Madam Aubrey nodded towards Persephone's sleeping form and met his eyes again with a gentle look. "Miss Callaghan will be fine, she just needs a good long rest and she will be on her feet in no time. And, speaking of rest, it is time for you to return to the dormitories."

Abraxas seemed skeptical about her diagnosis but he nodded anyway. "Yes, Madam. Thank you for allowing me to visit so late." He allowed another short look at the unconscious witch before turning back to Madam Aubrey and offering her the most appropriate smile he could muster. "Have a good evening, Madam."

Madam Aubrey returned his smile and a nod, tracking his exiting form with a steady, curious gaze. "You as well. . . Abraxas."

. . . . .

"_Tom, hand me those records over there, will you?" Hermione intoned absently, motioning with her chin towards the far end of the long, oaken desk they were seated around. She barely budged her eyes from the page she was scanning, blinking only between flipping it to the next as her other hand scribbled easily upon a parchment to the side of the tome she was bent over._

_She heard a rustling of fabric, the sliding of a chair over wooden floorboards and vaguely noticed the figure at her side after seeing a short stack of parchment come into view. Hermione murmured a thank you, finishing her scribing of one particular note before sitting back up and reaching for them. She read over the first page and, several lines in, scrunched her face in confusion and then a slow, dawning realization. _

_Setting the stack back down very slowly, very deliberately, Hermione spoke with a deceptively calm cadence, "We've been over this…it's not possible." She watched him take a seat on the desk and his hand come into view to gently rest upon hers. She had to shut her eyes tightly, willing away the ache in her chest._

"_I think, if you continue reading, that you shall find that it is __**quite**__ possible, actually."_

"_Tom—"_

"_I've done the maths. I've checked it a hundred times over to be certain. Look, here, I'll show you." _

_She felt him reach awkwardly between them with his far hand, never releasing her other one, to pluck a few pages from the stack he'd given her. She resisted opening her eyes, she didn't WANT to see. She didn't want to because it was impossible and they'd been THROUGH it before._

"_Hermione," Tom's voice was near her ear, louder, more insistent, yet somehow still gentle. "LOOK. I promise you—"_

"_Don't make promises you cannot keep, Tom Riddle," she said quickly, harshly._

_He was undeterred and also utterly unfazed if his repositioning and the new, gently coaxing touch to her cheek was any sign._

"_Hermione, please." _

_She opened her eyes at his plea. Even after all they'd been through together, he still so very rarely __**asked**__ her for anything. When she drew her eyes back to his, she nearly hissed at herself over the waterworks that were swiftly fighting past all of her defenses. She ultimately lost the fight when she watched his normally stoic dark gaze soften in a way she knew in her gut that only SHE had ever, and likely WOULD ever, see. "Tom, don't…"_

"_Do you trust me?"_

"_What?" Hermione flinched at the abrupt and obvious question. She felt a bubbling of anger slipping into place between the budding pangs of loss and hope inside of her and her reply was snappy and immediate. "Of course I do! Why would you even ask such a ludicrous question?"_

"_Then __**look**__ at the research before you bloody dismiss me," Tom's voice snapped in a stern tone, his hand dropping away from her face so she could, in fact, finally take a look at the papers._

_Hermione felt his eyes on her during every long second of scanning over the spellwork theory and calculations along with all the arithmancy work he'd included._

_Well, he certainly was not lying. He HAD checked his work at least a hundred times over._

…_and they all pointed to an impossible, __**IMPOSSIBLE**__ result._

_She placed the papers down gently once more, though this time she couldn't steady the shake in her hands. He seemed to understand the gravity of this information being saddled upon her shoulders and he allowed her to breathe in the reality of it slowly, several times, before he finally spoke again._

"…_they don't have to be lost."_

"_What if—what if your worst case happens?" Hermione was shaking her head already. She shut her eyes again and felt the trickle of tears sliding down her cheeks. His hands were there again, steadying her, swiping away the moisture._

"_**They**__ don't have to be the ones lost," Tom repeated himself with a deliberate emphasis that made her wince._

_She choked at his careful phrasing—always careful with his phrasing, but she knew. She KNEW the truth of it, as did he! It was right there in his perfect looping script. She reopened her eyes to inspect him as if to confirm that he truly understood, feeling her heart lurch when she saw the way he appeared to be memorizing every tiny detail of her face. _

_Bastard. Bloody bastard!_

_Saving her parents within the timeline and restoring their memories was possible but it came with many risks. The most devastating of them all would bring an entirely different kind of loss to them both._

_Her breath hitched with a hiccup and she tried to protest again, but more and more, Merlin help her, she realized she wanted it. Gods, she wanted them back but she wasn't ready to lose this; to lose HIM. "You—"_

"_Have found…at least one thing in this world that I care more about than myself, Hermione," he spoke quietly, eyes never leaving her, even when his mouth twitched up into a smirk. "Even if there IS only the one."_

_Hermione watched his mouth moving, that delightful smirk of his still talking, trying to ease away the thump-thump-thumping of her heart in her ears. He knew. He knew as well as she what the decision would be and yet he still…_

_Bastard…_

_Tom stroked her hair from her face while looking at her with an expression of longing that cut her to her core. _

_Stubborn…_

_He leaned in, trailing his hands between them to link with her own._

_Incorrigible…_

_His lips pressed a gentle kiss to her mouth before he shifted again, pressing his forehead lightly against hers._

_Brilliant…_

_Then he murmured three words that shattered her heart._

"_I've already begun…"_

_Bastard._

Hermione awoke in the Hospital Wing sometime in the dead of night, her pulse hammering in her ears, heart racing, and short of breath with a painful sting behind her eyes. The terrible ache of loss in her chest trumped the more physical one permeating her joints and muscles from head to toe. One trembling hand came up to cover her mouth, stifling quiet sobs that shook her to her core as her glazed eyes pointed towards the darkened rafters.

She waited, with a sick kind of hope, for the dream to fade, for it to dissolve into the recesses of her mind where the rest of the things that were kind and nice and _good _in her world had always disappeared to. When it didn't, when it lingered, when it pounded against the backs of her bloody eyes, vivid like a fresh memory, an audible, choked sob slipped through her fingers.

"_Miss Callaghan?"_

Hermione gasped, only mildly startled out of her personal sorrow at the appearance of the school's Mediwitch. Madam Aubrey's head peeked around the privacy curtain, highlighted only by a select few slivers of moonlight and, at seeing her awake, the witch glided to her bedside. The woman's arm was out and brushing a clean white handkerchief over her face before she realized what was happening, paying particular attention to blotting at her nose. Hermione flinched away, her head hammering now more as she was waking and coming into alertness but Madam Aubrey was insistent.

"Here now," she chided in a cool, calm speech that had to have been honed over decades of nursing. "You've a bit of a nosebleed—yes, just pinch that there. You'll be fine."

Hermione groaned but, after a bit more fussing, acquiesced to the demands and took over the handkerchief at her nose, using the back of her opposite hand to scrub away remnants of her tears.

"Good to see you awake," Aubrey said, drawing back to look down at her patient. She eyed Hermione, watching the girl fidget under her gaze. An attempt at a kind smile spread slowly across her face. "Was it a nightmare?"

_No…and yes._

Hermione swallowed, her eyes darting to the side, shaking loose a few new tracks of tears with the movement. It had been wonderful and horrible: the excitement of having something she'd longed for, for so long returned to her as well as the terrible anguish of the impending loss of someone else that she'd loved just as dearly. It was something she wanted to savor and scrub from her memory all at once.

Hermione had almost forgotten Madam Aubrey was still there until she settled herself on a chair at her bedside and one of her hands came out to pat her arm. She shivered at how cold the woman's hands were, idly thinking to herself that it apparently wasn't just Muggle doctors or nurses that had no circulation in their digits.

"Young Mister Malfoy found you in such a state," the Mediwitch said as she straightened and smoothed her robes. "All cut and rumpled in your gown following an undoubtedly _festive _evening. I count it no surprise your sleep would be disturbed by nightmares after having been found unconscious in the Forbidden Forest like that." She added this last bit with a raised brow. "Perhaps some residual thoughts about what you experienced out there? Or perhaps about how you came to be here?"

The Mediwitch cast a knowing look over her shoulder alongside a crooked smile and Hermione felt sick.

"My _dear_ child. . . I won't be quite so bold as to say that I know ultimately why you were brought to me in tatters, extracted from the center of a forest that had been charred nearly beyond recognition. . . but I _would_ say that no simple boy is worth making you feel all _that_." Madam Aubrey motioned dismissively at Hermione, insinuating the dream she'd just awoken from and seemingly missing the way the girl swallowed and her chest hitched. "When you're older, as I am, you'll understand that there are _very_ few boys—or men, for that matter—that are worth such stress and heartache. Allowing someone like that to keep a piece of your heart. . ." She trailed off, shaking her head and letting out a heavy sigh.

Hermione's headache increased and she felt a new wave of tears gathering in the corners of her eyes. She wasn't sure if she should attribute that one to the ache in her body or the ache in her heart at that point and just turned away from the meddling witch.

Madam Aubrey seemed to take it as her cue to withdraw and, as smoothly and serenely as she'd appeared, her gliding steps took her to the edge of the curtain. The woman's head tilted to one side, eyes scanning over Hermione from top to bottom and back. "Get some rest," she whispered evenly, "tomorrow is another day where all is not lost. You'll see, dear, you'll see. . ."

The Mediwitch finally bid Hermione goodnight, ignoring or perhaps just not hearing the stifled sobs as they returned to the otherwise silent ward. She began making her way from whence she came, pausing only due to the low but building groans from behind another of the curtains. Hesitating, she listened to the sound, listening for signs of waking and, with an annoyed exhale, turned on her heel to address the issue.

Slipping through the curtains, she watched the boy twitching in his sleep, his fussing increasing as she neared. His mouth was moving with anxious murmurs, head tossing on his pillow from one side to the other until his eyes groggily opened. His dazed look cleared and his chest started to rise and fall to the beat of someone that had climbed to a very fresh state of wakefulness. She watched him watch her, his eyes taking in her figure and form until his mouth was gaping and he'd begun to hyperventilate.

Padding to his side, his wide, panicked stare tracked every step she made. She plucked up a vial from his bedside, cooing and shushing him softly to no effect. With a sigh, she dragged the knuckles of her free hand across his cheek, choked noises puffing past his lips. "Time for your next dose, love," she soothed while she firmly coaxed the liquid down his throat. "I'll be _right_ here when you wake up."

Lawrence tensed and whimpered, eyes locked onto hers for as long as it took the effects of another draught to forcibly pull him into slumber.

* * *

**A/N:** Hi all! Just wanted to pop in really quick and say that several people (here and on Tumblr) have expressed concern and/or annoyance at the fact that Tom and Hermione/Persephone's relationship is kind of stagnating in this back and forth at the moment. Regarding that issue, this IS a romance but I've got things very deliberately paced for a reason (several reasons actually…ask the few people that I've shown my timeline to).

My original incarnation of many of these encounters had them coming together quite a bit sooner but, honestly, it didn't make any sense with the context of Tom being at this stage of his plotting canonically (maybe if she'd gotten to him earlier on before he'd already gotten the power = immortality concept in his head it'd be less of an issue) or with Hermione's own plotting consciousness coming off the loss of everyone she knew and a decade of torture and sexual abuse. (In my opinion, the fact that either of them can even remotely function romantically at all at this point is already kind of pushing it...but it's a love story darnit.)

The overall, surprisingly sappy, theme of Persephone is "love conquers all" and theirs is definitely a story of _true_ love, though that doesn't necessarily mean they have a traditionally "happy" story with all of that.

**The long and short of it is that this is going to be a very long story.** It spans across several years of their lives together and, as such, there will not always be immediate or quick resolutions to things. The romance DOES pick up in the next few chapters or so but I've already condensed it as far as I'm willing to go and I understand that that's not going to work for everyone. To those of you that may find the pacing to not be of your liking, sorry for that, but it will continue onward as planned because there is a reason it is the way it is.

**ETA: **And please do not feel inclined to tell me that you are exiting my story and going to come back to it later when it's finished (especially by referencing that it is "too long" between updates) or that you are exiting for good. If you are, that's fine, I understand, but there's no need to inform me of your departure in that manner. If folks want to continue to review that they're still unhappy with the pacing, that's fine, but like I said, there are particular reasons they're going through the motions the way they are and, behind the scenes, I've pushed them into place as quickly as I think makes sense for the long term.

Anyway, thank you again to EVERYONE that continues to support me and this work, thank you to my friends/alpha readers who keep encouraging my nonsense and insanity (**Colubrina**, **Brightki**, and **ShayaLonnie** especially since I shove this shit at you all relentlessly when it's still raw and particularly awful), and so many thanks to my beta reader **evocatrice** who tries with all her might to clean up the storm of crazy that I send her every time a new chapter is done.


	27. Chapter 26 - Möbius (Book II)

**26 – Möbius**

November 1943

No sooner had Tom resolved to shutter away all errant thoughts and concerns about Persephone Callaghan did the constant mention of her become inescapable. It was as though he'd taken on the task of sneaking silently through an ancient rickety house and, despite having every weak and worn floorboard memorized, he managed to trigger a long and agonizing creak with every careful step taken.

Her name came at him in a barrage from his professors, all offering their myriad condolences for her apparently injured state. He politely redirected their sentiments without being crass or rude about their _non-_situation, of course. That the meddling faculty saw fit to impose some perceived lover's spat scenario upon the pair of them was insulting, yet he had no desire to further indulge their needling for details in a matter that already involved them in no way, shape, or form. They could speculate and percolate on their imagined relationship and he would just continue to ignore the whispers of _Persephone_ that made his hair stand on end.

His followers understood his commands to silence their prodding about the girl and, in time, these adults would learn their place as well. He would not be held to such mundane and mortal expectations by the lot of them.

_Love is a weakness and I won't have any part in it, _Tom thought grimly from his seat amidst the shelves of the restricted section.

He'd ended it before it could consume him. He wouldn't allow her to become his burden of the heart like the weak willed idiots around him. He was better than that, he was more _powerful_ than that, more powerful than _her_ and the knowledge she possessed. He would learn to weave spells more decadently than those she'd unleashed upon him in play. He would grow and settle these pissants around him into their proper places without her guidance and he would be better for it in the end.

He didn't _need_ her.

Tom's own words echoed in his skull, a flash of her tear stricken face coming unbidden into his thoughts. The sudden ache at the memory that wrenched at his chest and soured his stomach ripped a gasp from his throat. He jolted back sharply from the desk he occupied as though it had scorched him. The pounding of his blood in his ears grew so suddenly loud and Tom stubbornly shook himself from the moment. His brows furrowed in a glare towards the book he'd been tucked into as if it were to blame and he shoved it aside. He attempted to shrug off the sickly chill that came over him, swiping lightly shaking and clammy hands over his trouser legs and clearing the unwelcome lump from his throat.

Love was a weakness and regrets did not belong upon the shoulders of Lords.

Tom tried diligently to return to his reading, plucking another tome from his stack for a change of pace but found the churning in his gut only served to grow more adamant in demanding his attention. He pushed on, eyes scanning the same line of text over and over again yet he was unable to pull sense from the words on the page. His corner of the library had grown suffocating with a thick silence and all he could see before him was not parchment and ink but the way the tiniest thread of vulnerability had leaked into her chocolate eyes and their swirling pools of darkness and magic. It had crept into her gaze, found its way via a trembling uncertainty in her voice and he'd pounced on it, rejecting her with such coldness and surgical precision that she'd fumbled in scouring the hurt from her face.

He should have been elated in his victory yet instead, he felt discord; he felt a hot clawing mess of guilt tearing at his stomach lining and expelling bile onto his tongue. The tears of Persephone Callaghan, at his hand, sickened him in ways he had no name for and the smallest, most treacherous voice in his head, a voice far away and muffled, peeped out the feeble suggestion that he could still change his mind once more.

With an aggravated growl at the faint voice, Tom snapped his book shut, flinching away from the sizable gust the heavy leather-bound cover huffed at him in reply. More so, he scoffed indelicately when a dirtied, rumpled and torn sheet of parchment came flying up at him, presumably from where it'd been tucked into the back of the tome. Sneer painted on his face, Tom plucked the offensive object up to see what sort of notes someone would have left in the back of a book about spell composition theory and derivatives only to find a faded script half covered in dark, sooty smudges that formed some sort of list of names.

"Graham Orpheus…Callum Thomas…Frederick _Balthazar_?" Tom's sneer turned into a grimace as he tried to read through them, each line tickling his memory though he had a great deal of difficulty trying to pinpoint where he'd heard or read them before.

"_You're not supposed to be here, you know."_

Tom stiffened at the words, ready in an instant to defend himself and his permissions. Folding the paper up hastily and tucking it into a breast pocket, he turned in the direction of the speaker. "Professor Slughorn has given me explicit permission to…" The words died on his tongue when his prepared speech met absolutely no one. Confused and half expecting some other ghost he'd only read about in texts to appear, Tom rose from his chair and drew his wand, casting a tentative glance about the space. "Who's there?"

"_Who are you?"_

Tom whirled around at the second voice, wand pointed stiffly in the direction of it. It took several seconds for his brain to make sense of the sound and when it did, he felt more baffled than before. Slowly, carefully, he approached the source of it, his feet taking him on the familiar path to one of the study nooks that he used to frequent with Persephone.

"_My name is Professor Granger, Tom. I'll be teaching Arithmancy, starting this year."_

Before him, in the nook, were small lumps of sketchy muted colors flickering in and out of existence. They blurred and faded from his sight whenever he would focus on them, only smoothing out their picture once more when his gaze would dart around and narrow in on anything _but_ them. Tom settled on staring at a discarded velvet pillow in the corner of the nook, his body frozen in the slim archway as the edges of his vision sharpened and he found himself staring at…himself_ – __**his eleven year old self**_ – all tucked away and hidden with a tome that was nearly half the size of his torso.

His young self was instantly and openly suspicious. The sight of precisely what he was thinking and feeling so clearly plastered upon his tiny, scrupulous face nearly made Tom cringe.

"_How d'you know my name?"_ Young Tom asked.

Tom heard a woman's chuckle from where he stood, tired but soft and warm.

"_I know a lot of things," _Professor Granger's voice whispered in a playful, conspiratorial manner that the wee Tom responded to with a blank stare. Granger sighed. _"I came here for you."_

"_Who sent you?"_ The boy asked.

There was a pause. Tom's shoulders shrugged of their own accord, filling the silence with a movement that just _seemed_ right.

"_It's not important," _came Professor Granger's reply before she abruptly changed the subject. _"What is that you've got there? What are you reading?"_

Tom watched as the boy tilted the cover of the giant book away from her to give a clear view of the golden embossed lettering that read _Hogwarts: A History_; he could practically feel the shift of energy in the air as the scene played out.

"_Oh! Do you like that one?"_

The shift in her tone, the warmth that spread through her voice in that split second of change tingled along his nerve endings so much so that he had to shut his eyes against the disorienting sensation. Bracing himself against the doorway, Tom shook his head but his lips mouthed the words alongside his own smaller voice.

"_I thought it good to learn about this place and this seemed—"_

"—_the best place to start?"_

Tom could hear the smile in the witch's voice and, even without sight, it felt brilliant and so genuinely enthused that a smirk found its way to his face despite the way spots of light had begun to shimmer and spin behind his eyelids.

"_I think so too," _she said, the location of her voice shifting further into the nook for a moment. _"But if anyone else catches you in here, you're liable to get in trouble. Walk with me? We can talk about what you've read so far and I'll show you another of __**my**__ favourite places to read with less chance of consequences for you."_

His head began to ache and Tom felt lightheaded, but he could almost picture the woman in his mind. She was young for a professor, he thought, would likely have been his height as he was, possibly shorter, and with long, dark tresses pulled into some sort of haphazard bundle behind her neck. Many of her features remained sketchy and unclear except for her eyes. Her eyes were solid and staring straight down at him, _into _him, in this memory. Rich dark brown eyes looked at him and held the strangest array of thoughts tangling with one another more openly than he'd ever seen painted on anyone's face before. Anger, loathing, civility, compassion, sorrow, determination; they were all so raw and tangible.

And so poorly hidden. He didn't even need _legilimency_ to pick it all apart.

Tom remembered the feel of the smile that curled his lips in this far off memory. He shook his head at the laughable kindness the witch extended to him in spite of the warring emotions in her expression, remembered staring at her proffered hand skeptically for a long, _long_ while. Caught in the memory, he mumbled aloud his reply of "_alright"_ and watched his small palm reach up to take her hand.

"Mister Riddle," the stern, crisp voice of Madam Pince cut through the silence of the area like a knife, ripping Tom forcefully from the vision.

Tom fumbled his step, barely recovering his balance to turn sharply towards the librarian and mask the entryway of the nook with a robed arm. His sight blurred and fuzzed, the scene that had played out before him swiftly dissolving from his memory save for the faintest lingering buzz of warmth. Tom's lids fluttered, the image of his young self and the strange witch disappearing from his mind and he found himself facing the grim expression of the school librarian. Responding quickly with a habitual smoothness to his greeting while everything came back into focus, Tom smiled and said, "Madam."

Pince arched a thin eyebrow at Tom's teetering form, her head tilting to one side as she examined him. Her eyes scanned him from head to toe and back, lingering on his face for a long beat.

The librarian's pause unsettled him in a way he couldn't describe and Tom called upon the polite and charming tone that had always worked on the woman. "Sorry…Madam…was I being disruptive?"

Tom's question seemed to stir her from her thoughts and she shook away the flash of something that'd momentarily softened her expression. Madam Pince waved away the notion and produced a folded letter, holding it between them somewhat stiffly with her stare affixed to the object in question. "Professor Slughorn sent a messenger for you. He requested your presence as soon as possible."

Tom eyed the letter, mentally rehashing all of his activities in the last few days that could result in a summons from his Head of House with any sort of urgency. Still forcing the smile, he nodded and reached to accept the note, resisting a shiver when he brushed the tips of Madam Pince's spindly ice cold fingers. "Thank you, Madam," Tom said pleasantly despite the chill. "I will shelve my books and find the Professor right away."

Madam Pince's gaze flicked up again to his eyes and away just as quickly. She straightened, folded her hands in front of her and nodded as she turned away. "I'll leave you to it, Tom. Do not dawdle."

He made to reply but found that Pince had already silently glided off after her curt order. Tom frowned at the space she'd occupied moments before, a light tremor of annoyance tickling down his spine at the woman, but he shook his head anyway, muttering under his breath about insufferable witches.

. . . . .

Abraxas, Avery, Rophelius, and the rest of Tom's followers found themselves milling about with a free evening, thanks to an urgent project from Professor Slughorn demanding Tom's immediate attention. Apparently, it was a task that none other than the professor's _other_ token student had been in charge of before her unfortunate stint in the Hospital Wing demanded her bed rest and recovery.

Tom had been, in a word, furious, at both the task and who he was taking it on in lieu of. He, rather unceremoniously, cancelled their practice in The Room, stating that he'd been assigned a late night brewing schedule with their Head of House for the next several days instead.

None of them had the dim sense to question him further on the matter, leaving him to his own devices in his fury, however, that left the lot of them unsure of how to spend their nights without his instruction. Avery had insisted they use at least a portion of their Masterless evenings to indulge in polishing off the remnants of the celebratory whiskey he'd had smuggled in for Halloween.

The majority of them agreed.

"To Persephone Callaghan!" Avery raised his glass sarcastically.

"Shut your mouth, Elliot!"

Avery snorted flippantly. "Sod off, Silvas."

"_You_ sod off!" Silvas Rosier jabbed an angry finger in the other boy's direction before flopping heavily into a posh armchair. "Tom ordered us not to speak her name."

"He ordered us not to speak the bint's name around _him_. Do you see our Dark Lord around?" Avery asked petulantly with a sweeping gesture indicating the common room.

Rosier fixed a foul glare onto Avery but just took a swig of the smuggled alcohol in his glass.

"Besides," Avery continued unprompted, "fear of a name increases fear of the thing itself."

"Are you insinuating that Tom is scared?" Tarquin Nott asked offhandedly moving a pawn into place on the chessboard between him and Abraxas. "Because I'll be happy to report to our Lord your thoughts on the matter."

The tall boy paled a bit, some of his bravado melting away in the face of the question. "That's not what I meant," Avery snapped harshly.

"What, then?"

Avery shrugged, slumping into the cushions. "I didn't come back to this sad excuse for a school to get caught up in some pitiful lover's quarrel."

"_Avery!"_

"_Tom is NOT pitiful—"_

"Calm yourself, gentlemen," Avery drawled, waving off his cohorts' outrage. "I'm not saying that he is. _All_ that I AM saying, is that he is simply…distracted. Wouldn't you agree?"

Rophelius settled some but Mulciber piped up from where they both sat near the hearth. "It's not our place to question his actions, Elliot."

"No," he conceded, "but it IS our job as his loyal Knights to _protect_ our Lord. Can we at least agree on _that?"_

There was a quiet murmur of agreement among the boys on the couches.

Avery nodded and smiled. "Good." He idly traced a finger along the edge of his tumbler. "That extends to us protecting him from all threats…even if they come in the form of shapely, meddlesome witches."

Abraxas, silent until that point, sent a narrow eyed look at his friend. "What are you saying, mate?"

The boy gave a fluid shrug, sipping from the glass. "I'm _saying_ that in order to be good Knights, we should take care of his distraction for him so that he can dedicate his full attention once more towards his plans. Towards the future that he's promised us."

Nott snorted. "And this idea has absolutely nothing to do with the fact that Persephone Callaghan utterly _**WRECKED**_ you into a blubbering mess of piss and shite?"

The open snark caused Avery to surge up from his seat, glass falling to the side, forgotten in favor of drawing his wand. He swung his arm around in Nott's direction, Tarquin coming to his feet as well on the defensive. "I'll show you _wrecked—"_

Abraxas shoved between the two of them and palmed a hand flat onto Avery's chest, stiff arming him away. "Settle down!"

Avery clicked his tongue and let loose a frustrated grunt. Slapping Abraxas' hand away, he paced away, running fingers through his hair then tossing his arms up with a snort. "Am I the ONLY one that wants to see this plan succeed? To see it actually sprout some result—"

"Tom said we have to be patient early on—"

"_Patient._" Avery scoffed and huffed a few more times before finally calming somewhat. "Gents, our Lord needs our _help _to see his plans through. He's got a tall order ahead of him: planning, plotting, all while bearing the demanding weight of being an 'exemplary' student to these moronic teachers. Boys…we'd be doing him a _favour_ by taking care of his distraction."

Abraxas watched his friend pitch his cause to the others and saw various levels of apprehension in their faces. He saw, with a distinct nervousness spreading in his gut, as this apprehension lessened, the longer they mulled over Avery's words. Unsurprisingly, the meekest protest came from Rosier, the one – out of them all – always the most cautious when acting without orders.

"I don't know that Tom would approve…"

Avery chuckled and moved to where Silvas Rosier sat, settling in beside him and clapping a hand on the boy's shoulder. "I think you're missing the point, mate. As I said, Tom is far too busy with everything else on his plate. The last thing he needs to worry himself with are any arrangements to get rid of Callaghan. It's _beneath_ his concerns right now."

"Wait," Abraxas said with the utmost incredulity, "you want to get rid of Persephone…and you want to do it entirely without Tom's go ahead? Without his approval _or _him even knowing about it?"

"_Tom doesn't take well to us acting on our own…"_

This sent Avery into another dramatic snit and he tossed his arms in frustration once again. "What _are_ you lot? A gaggle of inverts?" He challenged them all crudely. "Do you think the Dark Lord wants a group of MEN for his Knights or a group of nancies that can't even take care of a little bitty witch for him without his constant stamp of approval?"

The lot of them shifted awkwardly, Abraxas' eyes narrowing impossibly further at each and every insult his childhood pal slung.

"Trust me, boys. Once everything is all said and done, he will _thank_ us for our service."

"And just how do you expect to 'take care' of her without drawing attention to us—to HIM?" Abraxas protested a final time. "They've been close since her arrival here."

"There is time yet to figure that out, Abraxas." Avery shrugged. "Besides, accidents do tend to happen quite a lot here at Hogwarts…all the time." He caught Abraxas' stare and, without breaking eye contact, swiped Silvas' glass for his own, taking a deep draw of the amber liquid. "Don't worry, Abbie, we'll find you a prettier witch that knows her place in the world to fawn over."

Abraxas' nostrils flared and a series of fine tendons in his neck and jaw tensed with the clenching of his teeth. He held his friend's stare a moment longer before finally letting out the irate breath he'd been holding. A smirk found its way to his face and with a shake of his head, Abraxas padded back to his seat at the chessboard, eyes moving over his options with a very careful sort of precision. "I want a clever one," Abraxas called out across the room. "Not the daft nits you fancy to suck on your knob."

With that, Avery let out a loud, unbecoming snort and raised his glass in a toast. "'Atta boy."

The tension in the room dissipated as talk returned to less unsavory matters and Tarquin Nott, grimacing, took his seat back up across from Abraxas. He sent a questioning look across the board but was met with steely grey eyes that gave away nothing and a dismissive shake of his head. Nott sighed but returned to their game.

He failed to notice at all the way that Abraxas' thumb kept smoothing over his left forearm and his eyes glossed over between moves.

. . . . .

Elixirs. Tonics. Draughts.

Tom had spent the vast majority of his evening brewing with the potions master himself, listening to the man talk of the missive that had been sent out to all potion masters and apothecaries in the countries surrounding those heavily impacted by the Muggle war. A call for aid had been issued to assist the magical communities caught in the crossfires and replenish the stocks of potions used tending to the wounded.

"It is sensitive and private information, you understand," Slughorn had said during his initial summons. "We can't have word spreading around the school of just how close these fires are to our borders. I approached young Miss Callaghan about helping with the efforts. Considering the reason for her transfer, I presumed she would want to assist, you see! Orphaned by a war that wasn't even ours, poor thing." He'd paused to give a sad shake of his head before continuing on. "Madam Aubrey nearly snapped my head off right there in the Hospital Wing at the suggestion, however! Can you believe it, Tom?"

Entirely unsurprised at his professor's lack of tact, Tom had forced a surprised expression to his features. "Forgive me for being so bold, sir, but…how positively _unreasonable_ of her."

"I know!" Slughorn huffed and sighed. "That mess aside, I know you will be a great asset in this…just, _do_ remember to keep the details under lock and key. Alright?"

"You have my word, Professor."

And so there they were.

Setting a few new cauldrons to simmer alongside the half dozen he'd already started, Slughorn seemed to have no trouble picking up in conversation precisely where he left off hours ago. "We constantly harp about wanting young witches and wizards to get involved in their community and the moment I act on such a great cause, I'm screeched at by that old harpy!" He scoffed, muttering to himself at the absurdity. "What a crossed message to the new generation."

Tom nodded and agreed, humming and chuckling in all the right places as the wizard nattered on while they brewed. He'd mostly become lost in his actual thoughts, in his vile distaste for the Muggles, their idiot war, and the utterly infuriating cause for this call to action. By the sounds of the report from his professor, they had caused sizable damage to various magical communities around the globe.

_It was always them, wasn't it? Filthy Muggles. They caused trouble and spread chaos wherever they lingered, in whatever they touched. _

A scowl turned his expression sour as he worked but Slughorn was too busy brewing and chattering to notice. Tom, so practiced and proficient in his task, stirred, simmered, and bottled without sparing a thought to it, concentrating most of his efforts on the loathing for _them_. The loathing for his own weak heritage, the portion of his blood that he could not drain and rid himself of to cleanse his veins of their legacy, their destruction.

He _hated_ them.

"She appeared to be doing well."

Professor Slughorn's shift in tone is what brought him out of his head more than any actual attention he'd been sparing for the man. Tom paused in his bottling, looking up to see the other wizard still tending to his task. "Sorry?"

"Miss Callaghan," Slughorn said as though it were obvious, only then pausing to send Tom a quick glance over top of cauldrons. "As I said before, I had little chance to _truly_ speak with her before the old bat chased me off, but…Miss Callaghan, she did seem to be recovering well."

Tom blinked slowly at his professor, feeling the muscle in his jaw twitch with the effort it took to summon his smile. "I gathered that." He felt the words, saturated with venom, slither out of his mouth in a way that, expectedly, drew Slughorn's gaze back up to him in surprise. Tom willed his smile to soften, the tightness around his eyes to ease, and the white knuckled grips he had on the ladle and vial in his hands to lessen just enough to be convincing. "That is to say, I would not presume you to have asked for her assistance had she still looked ill, Professor."

Professor Slughorn's eyes lingered a moment, processing the information, before he scoffed. "Of course not! Why, that would be utterly insensitive. Yes…of course…" He shook his head as if to confirm that, yes, Tom's natural conclusions were terribly obvious. With another shake of his head and a small snort of a laugh, Slughorn resumed brewing.

Unfortunately for Tom, he also resumed talking.

"Madam Aubrey did mention, in the midst of her tirade, that Miss Callaghan would be due to be released within the next day or so to the dorms. Perhaps you could—"

"_**PROFESSOR,"**_ Tom called out suddenly in a loud, urgent voice, cutting the man off bluntly. "We seem to have lost track of the time!" With a false sense of concern and dismay, he pointed out the very late hour. "We've started too many cauldrons, sir. These others—" His gesture included only cauldrons that Slughorn had started bubbling during his yammering, Tom's being all nearly about done. "—won't be finished until the early hours."

Furrowing his brow, Professor Slughorn stopped talking to have a long look over his tables, only to find that Tom was right. He frowned. "Merlin's beard, Tom…you're right. You must have just gotten carried away during our chat!" Slughorn shook his head in astonishment at the oversight and eventually let out a resigned sigh. "Don't worry about it, dear boy, I'll stay up with them and see them through. Finish up what you've got on that table there and you can be on your way. Just be ready to adjust our batches starting tomorrow! I'd certainly thought we could get through more by now…I may need to extend your contract by another week or so at this rate."

Tom's patronizing half smile faltered at that news. Another _**week**_ with him because the man overestimated his own brewing capabilities before sending off promises of delivery for several dozens of potions? No, Tom thought. He would _not_ be wasting another week of evenings for _this._

"Professor," Tom purred, "you should go on to bed. I will stay and see these through."

"Don't be ridiculous," Slughorn protested immediately. "I cannot deprive a _student_ of their sleep! Go on and head to the dorms—"

"But sir," he insisted, "You've a whole day of lectures and brewing ahead of you while I have a free period first thing in the morning. It would make just as much sense—no—_more_ sense that I stay here and you benefit from what rest you can still achieve." Already doing calculations in his head of how many more potions he could have completed and how many days he could shed off of this imprisonment if he simply stayed up throughout the entire night, Tom gave his professor a most earnest and pleading look.

Slughorn hesitated, eyes darting from the number of additional batches he'd erroneously began to Tom to the clock and back. "I…don't know. It's against school policy to leave a student unsupervised here…"

Seeing the man wavering between his options, Tom steeled himself internally to say, "Allow me to do this for _Persephone_, sir." It was the first time he'd spoken her name aloud in days and Tom detested the way the taste of it managed to be both wonderful and savory as well as the most bitter tang he'd ever experienced. "She would not want to lose traction in this, not when just nearly a year ago could something like it have possibly benefited her parents so."

Tom's words stopped Professor Slughorn's protest in their tracks. A rare, serious look came over him and his mouth set into a grim line, head already bobbing lightly in a nod. "Alright, Tom," he said, closing the distance between them and clasping one of Tom's shoulders firmly in one hand. "Alright. You're a good man."

Tom scoffed, shook his head and averted his gaze to the side. "Professor…please…"

Slughorn let out a chuckle, patted Tom on the shoulder one more time and then moved to leave. "Stay only as long as you need to for these, Tom." He pointed at him seriously. "I mean it. And come get me _immediately_ if anything seems amiss, I am just down the hall. Understood?"

Still entertaining his mildly bashful demeanor, Tom rose his eyes again to meet his professor's and gave the man an affirming nod. "Yes, sir."

"Excellent. Have a good night."

He watched the wizard exit after his barely-there-at-all protest at excusing himself to the comforts of his bed, allowing the eager-to-please visage to melt from his features. Tom glared at the space where his teacher occupied moments before and huffed out a disgusted breath before discarding his blazer and tie, rolling up his sleeves, and getting to work.

. . . . .

The night passed agonizingly slowly for as much work as Tom was putting into churning out the different brews Slughorn had promised. In only a handful of hours, he had nearly tripled the wizard's original productivity numbers while also going strong with his own. If Tom's new calculations were correct – and he was _confident_ they were correct – he would most certainly _not_ be chained to the lab for a whole week on top of his original arrangement. In fact, he had likely shed at least a day from the original projected schedule, perhaps more if Slughorn agreed to allow him to brew overnight at least once more.

All that being said…there was still a great deal of work to do.

Letting out a tired, aggravated sigh, Tom set another set of batches to boil. A quick survey of the room and all the bubbling pots confirmed that he would have a significant stretch of time before any of them required much more attention, so he put his lethargic mind work on the research that Slughorn's summons had interrupted. He extracted one of the few tomes he'd been able to borrow and just as swiftly froze at the sight of cover.

_Secrets of the Darkest Art__._

Tom drew in a long, deep breath through his nose, not removing his eyes from the lettering. He was certain—he was _**positive**_—that he had not packed this tome among his things. Certainly, after his decision, he'd been sure to tuck this very book into the absolute recesses of what few belongings he possessed.

Maybe he had borrowed the incorrect title in his haste to meet with Slughorn…it would be a suitable explanation. Entirely feasible.

With a lick of his lips, Tom flipped open the cover and forward a few pages, tracing his finger down the page. When he hit the line he was looking for, he shut the book so fiercely that the nearest burner flame to him flickered under threat of being doused.

_Secrets of the Darkest Art__, penned by Owle Bullock, revision date: 1973._

Tom turned from its taunting, leather-bound form, wand hastily drawn and bloodshot eyes glaring with the utmost loathing in those moments. "Where are you, Callaghan?" he called, his voice gruff and as tired as the rest of him, "I know you're here somewhere!"

His question was met with silence. Not just any silence, however, but an unnatural silence. It was a silence so thick that he was surprised he'd not noticed anything before. It was a magical silence.

"Callaghan!" Tom growled, louder now. "Show yourself. _**NOW.**_"

His ire grew the longer that same, spell induced silence was the only thing to answer his words. Tom sneered, having entirely lost the patience for games like this a long, long time ago. He opened his mouth to snarl at the witch once more when a wave of cold air washed over the room. The severe chill caught him by surprise, caused him to stagger and every single one of the cauldron burners were snuffed out in unison.

Tom's glare was turned onto the tampering of _all_ of his work. The incantation was already on the tip of his tongue to reignite them when a flicker of movement snapped his attention towards the classroom doorway and darkened dungeon hall. Without a second thought, Tom marched in the direction he'd seen her go, illuminating the tip of his wand as he crossed the threshold into what was now clearly a pitch black hallway.

At that moment, he wasn't sure if his annoyance with her could have _been_ any more tangible.

His mouth opened to call to her again, but that savagely cold chill passed through him again. This time, it nearly knocked him off his feet, reminding him, in a way, of the single time he'd walked through one of the castle ghosts by mistake. The feeling was unpleasant, it was dreadful, _foul_. It ripped at his stomach from the back of his navel, snapped the finely tuned strings of his equilibrium, and jerked him forward in a stumble, leaving his head fuzzy and his vision doubled.

"_Professor, may I speak with you a moment?"_

Tom creased his brow when echoes of a voice he recognized only as his own reached his ears. Against his better judgement, he swallowed and turned to face the stretch of darkness behind him, finding nothing.

"…_yes, Tom…of course."_

_THAT_ voice. He knew this one as well…_where_ he knew it from, though, he was having trouble placing. It was closer than the one before it so, shaking off the groggy haze of confusion, Tom turned round again. This time, he could make out a sketchy, faint image of his seventeen year old self standing at the edge of the light from his wand. This 'other' Tom was staring straight back at him and he looked _terribly_ put out.

_Déjà vu._

This version of himself stood straight and proud, arms at his sides as though nothing were out of place at all, but he knew better. Tom could pick out the barest shift of weight from one foot to the other, the way one of his cheeks was sucked in more than the other, the tiny movements of that side of his jaw as he chewed at the inside of it to keep from saying something he desperately _wanted_ to say.

"_So that's it then?"_

He heard the sound of blood rushing through his ears, the beating of a heart heightening, and a careful, measured breath.

"_We've already spoken about this—"_

"_**NO**__." _

The image was suddenly close. He—_himself—HE_ was there. Tom startled, took a step back but couldn't go far.

"_YOU have spoken about it. __**WE**__ haven't spoken about anything!"_

"_Please, Mister Riddle—"_

"_And __**DON'T**__ call me that, Hermione!"_

Tom's breath caught in his throat at the name. It hammered into his consciousness like a valve opening a sluice and releasing a flood of images.

_A woman with long, dark curls swatting his hand from her breast as she read._

_A woman with a lightly rounded face smiling down at him as she extended her hand, framed by the dark walls of a hidden nook._

_A woman with wide, chocolate eyes staring at him from across an office, immobile…scared…pleading._

The last image ignited a sharp pain at his temples and a sudden ringing in his ears almost deafened him to the voices still fading in and out around him.

"_After all that's happened, it's a bit juvenile, don't you think?"_

"_It was a mistake!"_ The woman, _Hermione_, shouted. Tom watched his other self stiffen in response, sensed her resolve weaken even before she backpedaled. _"It-it shouldn't have happened, Tom. It can't have happened; you realize? You—__**we **__can't do this. You're too young—"_

"_Too young?"_ He snorted, practically dismissing the feeble excuse out of hand. _"Perhaps. And perhaps it shouldn't have happened…but it did, didn't it?"_

"_I shouldn't have let it happen!"_ Hermione's voice trembled with something that wasn't regret and Tom somehow knew the woman had squared her shoulders, maybe jutted her chin up and out in the face of this other self of his.

"_Just as you shouldn't have told me about your true purpose here?"_ His own voice sounded cutting, even to his ears. _"It's a bit late for all of THAT then, isn't it?"_

There was silence again, though this was a silence Tom had less experience with. This was a silence that reeked of tension, and anger, and guilt. It begged to be broken but only with the softest of touches that he was sure he'd never known how to provide. Tom shut his eyes against the silence, feeling the world shift and dip in the scant space of time it took him to take a deep, even breath and then reopen them. Once he had, he felt his arms moving of their own accord, reaching and circling the space before him that should have been empty yet were met with the solid warmth of a petite body, trembling in his hold, beginning to sniffle and her great bushy mane bristled and tickled his nose in a way he both hated and loved.

_And hadn't he been facing the other way just a moment ago..?_

"…_I'm sorry,"_ Tom murmured in a daze.

The bushy little head shook frantically in protest. _"It's my fault. I—I KNEW and I still—it's my fault."_

Tom's arms tightened around the spectral image, the urge to stop her tears and soothe her mind instinctual and familiar. A hand rubbed along her back, getting tangled in her hair more than once until he settled on more deliberately stroking overtop of it all.

"_Are you so eager to leave me?"_ Tom asked, a lump lodging in his chest as the words left his mouth.

The witch—_Hermione,_ he reminded himself—pushed away from him to stare him in the face and give him the _most_ appalled look he'd ever seen on anyone so dainty. _"Of course not! Do you think—do you think that I—with just ANYONE?"_

The longer Tom looked down upon the witch, the more the details of her misty image filled in and flared to life, shifting from dull shades of blue and grey into blocks and finer streaks of color.

Her dark eyes were the most amazing mixture of distraught, yet utterly livid and indignant while still brimming with a fondness a part of him knew intimately. The lightest dusting of freckles peppered the bridge of her nose and the very tops of her cheeks which were scrunched and hollowed respectively in response to his earlier question. A tinge of a red flush had seeped into her face and, quite frankly, the stern look, pursed lips, and her most intense stare was one that Tom could call to mind in a snap.

_Persephone…_

His hand lifted to her cheek and he lost himself in those eyes a little longer until they began to waver and soften. _"No,"_ he murmured confidently, indulging himself in the soft touch of her skin in his palm. _"I just have a great deal of difficulty understanding why it is you are still so willing to return when…when the thought of my days without you are…" _Tom felt the lump from before climb into his throat, felt his strain around it. _"I do not like it."_

Hermione's hand drifted towards her neck, hovering over a small bump, a pendant of some kind, hidden just beneath the neckline of her top. She bit the edge of her lip, worrying it between her teeth, and curled her hand around the unseen pendant. _"I can't stay…I wasn't meant to. This…it wasn't meant to be like this. If I do—Tom, there's no telling what may happen."_

At that, Tom felt his lips curl into a gentle smile. A fragile feeling, a most delicate emotion, coiled around his insides, teetering on a precipice, preparing to tilt forward to a victory or back into a cold, uncaring abyss. He brushed one of many loose locks of hair behind her ear and loosed a tremulous exhale. _"You ARE the Arithmancy professor, aren't you? Perhaps…perhaps you should look into it."_

Tom watched the tint to her cheeks deepen before her head dipped, gaze turning to find something amazingly fascinating about some tile off to the side.

"_Tom…"_

"_Hermione…do you or don't you want me?"_

A choked sound bubbled up from her throat against her will and what little composure Hermione had been maintaining, shattered before him. _"Of course I want you! You KNOW I do!"_

That teetering emotion fell forward and burst into a shower of warmth that radiated out into every bit of his body. Every single nerve ending in his body fired and he was overwhelmed, tingling in light of the words that no one had ever spoken to him before.

"_But…Tom, we can't know what will happen! Time doesn't work like that! It could be dangerous! Merlin, I KNOW it's dangerous!"_

She was looking at him again, tears no longer held at bay and falling freely down her cheeks. Tom's chest constricted at the sight and he desired, more than anything, to purge the world of everything that would ever cause this again.

"_I promise you—I __**PROMISE**__ you—that whatever happens, whatever the consequences, I will keep you safe. I would do anything to keep you safe."_ The words came easily from his throat with a conviction so real, so gritty, so raw that it stirred something primal and possessive and _angry_ in the back of his mind.

Tom's head began to pound.

Hermione hiccuped through her sobs at his words, shaking her head and dodging his attempts at gentle caresses until he cupped her cheeks in both hands and stilled her stubborn protests. Her tears calmed, her breaths evened out, and, after a particularly unpleasant bubbling sniff, Tom pressed his forehead to hers, chiding her softly. _"I believe you've gotten bogeys on my tie, Professor…"_

It tricked a laugh from her and she smacked his chest. Her mouth momentarily twisted in another stifled sob but she refused to let the seriousness of the moment drop entirely. _"What if…" _She breathed, steadying herself. _"…if it's not me that's in danger? I couldn't—I can't do this without you."_

_**I need you.**_

The unspoken words hung heavily in the air between them.

The implication of what _"anything"_ would truly entail rested heavily on both of their shoulders.

An ache spread throughout Tom's body.

An ache of want…

An ache of need…

An ache of utter, irreplaceable loss settled in each and every one of his muscles.

The pain was insurmountable, enough to drive a man insane.

The figure in his arms grew softer, thinner, flimsy… It began to unravel, fading within the circle of them until it was akin to trying to cuddle air.

Tom's headache was blinding.

The witch—_Hermione, her name is Hermione—_pulled away again. She looked at him with those big, watery eyes. She looked at him until the color drained back out of her face. Beautiful, healthy tanned skin, then pale and white, then pallid, blue, grey…grey…grey…

"_Stay with me,"_ he pleaded, hand hovering in the air where her cheek should be.

The frigid air of the dungeons pressed in on his skin.

"_Stay with me,"_ Tom said again.

She smiled at him.

"_We'll deal with the consequences as they come."_

Hermione—_Hermione, Hermione, __**Hermione**__, remember her name—_smiled again.

He smiled back.

She blushed, cupped both of her hands over his and parted her lips to speak.

"_**TOM!"**_

The shrill, blood curdling shriek of his name, exploded in his head. It ripped all the warmth that had settled comfortably into his bones from their perches and set it all ablaze in a mockery of the sweeter sensation. Rage and malicious fury clawed at the backs of his eyes, igniting the world around him in a futile attempt to free him of the pain in his gut, his chest, his _heart._

_**His head…**_

Tom blinked and found himself standing in Professor Slughorn's classroom with the smallest sliver of a new day's dawn peeking in from the windows. The couple dozens of cauldrons he had been using to brew overnight were cleaned and stacked along the far wall. An impressive number of vials had been labeled, organized, and gathered atop a table closest to Slughorn's desk and Tom's research materials were also neatly stacked in the spot in front of him.

He frowned, taking another slow look around the room to get his bearings. A dull aching throb pounded in time with his pulse in his temples and across his forehead compounding the persistent churning sickness in his stomach for a lovely combination of dizzying misery. Tom massaged his temples in an attempt to ease at least some of the discomfort but found it of little help. Giving up on that for the time being, he cracked open his eyes and tried to recall the last several moments of his night turned into day and realized that he could _not_.

Tom, for the life of him, couldn't conjure any images of what had happened or what he'd been doing since he'd sent Slughorn off to bed until the present. It was obvious that he'd completed the task that he set out to do but he just had zero recollection of actually _doing_ it.

The explanation to what happened dawned on him indelicately like a punch to the gut: he'd lost time again.

With a growl, Tom's mind immediately turned to the only witch who could be responsible for such a thing.

The _bitch._

His thoughts flitted around angrily in his skull, thousands of scenarios as to what she'd done _now_ to sabotage him manifesting in the front of his mind. He was on his way to convincing himself to break his resolve and confront her when the room spun and, startlingly, Tom realized he was extremely, _extremely_ woozy.

Tom tripped over his own feet, managing to support himself with the edge of a lab table before tumbling fully to the stone floor. His headache had not abated and the sickening feeling in his belly managed to spread into his chest. He shook his head as though it would dislodge the pain but served only to draw his attention to the sound of tiny splatters nearby. Squinting, Tom tried to examine the new pair of spots on the stone near his feet, leaning over as close as he dared without losing his grip on the table. Blinking blearily, he'd just about figured it out when two more drops splattered down, joining the others, and he finally noticed the sticky, wet lines of moisture pooling above his lip. Tom touched his fingers to his face beneath his nose and came away with fresh smudges of blood.

_Nosebleed..?_

His brows knit together.

_Persephone…_

Tom tried to reach for another name, another explanation for this strange series of events but it remained _just_ out of reach.

He frowned.

_Sleep,_ Tom thought, staring at the blood on his fingertips with glassy eyes. _Sleep first…_

. . . . .

Hermione trudged into her dorm and was thankful to find it completely empty. Tossing the tattered remains of her ball gown and Abraxas' more neatly folded Quidditch cloak into a pile at the foot of her bed, she allowed herself the pleasure of collapsing heavily onto the thick mattress. The sigh that escaped her was positively blissful. She had finally been released to the dorms on the Friday morning following her admittance to the Hospital Wing though Madam Aubrey advised her that, while she was cleared to return to classes the following Monday, she was _not_ to be seen doing anything extracurricular for at _least_ another week.

The long and short of it being that Madam Aubrey commanded her to be sure not to engage in anything one might be able to construe as _"fun."_

_It was just as well_, Hermione thought. She was truly and utterly wiped.

Her recovery in the Hospital Wing had gone as quickly as could be expected for having nothing seemingly wrong with her. Or so her caretaker said, anyway.

Hermione's cuts and scrapes had all been mended and cared for within the first few hours of her arrival. Within a day, she'd had no evidence that anything had ever been wrong in the first place save for the dark circles beneath her eyes. All things considered, she _should_ have been able to leave much, much earlier.

She would have, too, if not for the pesky occasional blacking out part.

That was the piece that had the Mediwitch the most perturbed. Aubrey hemmed and hawed, poked and prodded her with questions in, in her opinion, a decidedly unpleasant bedside manner trying to figure out if there had been anything at all that could have gotten to her out there only to come out with nothing. No answers, no culprit, zero, nada, _zilch._ Madam Aubrey had huffed, frustrated at there being apparently nothing for her to actually fix and settled on keeping Hermione under supervision long enough until the random stints of unconsciousness had ceased for an entire day. The older witch seemed unconvinced that there hadn't been anything else to attribute to the excessive bouts of exhaustion, fatigue, and those confounded nosebleeds, but let it go after the first handful of questionings of her patient led to the same results.

Madam Aubrey was right in her suspicions, of course. There most assuredly _was_ something else to cite as the culprit for her blackouts…but Hermione wasn't about to tell her that.

Hermione had not forgotten the dream she'd awoken to in the wing when she'd first come to. In fact, along with it came the stirrings of other things. Other memories and patches of time lost all bubbled to the surface of thought, making that too familiar feeling of nausea hammer through her with every resurgence of this scene or that. The memories of what had happened with Tom outside the Great Hall, the vision of Voldemort striking down her best friend in the middle of the Forbidden Forest, the sight of her and an older Tom Riddle looking upon her with a fondness that made her chest ache, they'd all returned.

She wasn't sure what to make of it at first but as they all played out, over and over, flashing behind her lids, thudding through her head, and clawing at her heart, Hermione's budding sense of unease about her task there became more and more prevalent. The images, in and of themselves, did not make a bit of sense along with what she knew and yet they felt more right than anything else that'd happened to her since her Elder self ensnared her mind. Something was…_off_.

For the first time in a long while, Hermione dug around her mind, seeking out the counsel from her Elder self. She searched for the voice of that sliver of personality the woman had implanted in her head through her spells. She sought answers from that shadow of the real thing who was likely jumping about in time elsewhere doing Merlin knew what at that very moment. That voice was utterly still and silent.

It made that feeling in her gut grow all the more.

It made questions surface that she'd never thought to ask before which only served to form many, many more.

Hermione lay on her bed, lids drooping, her body devoid of energy, but even as every physical piece of her demanded more sleep and more rest, her mind was racing. With every new question formed, a shroud was lifting, being nudged off of something tucked so neatly and tightly away in the depths of a mind possessed.

Answers…she needed answers.

…_just after a little more…sleep…_

. . . . .

_"Tom, may I speak with you a moment?"_

_The small boy dutifully put his book down at his side to offer his instructor his attention. "Yes, Professor, of course."_

_Hermione settled onto the __grass__ near him so that they were at the same level. She folded her legs under herself and expertly smoothed her skirt around them to maintain as much decorum as could be afforded to one sitting in the dirt and __grass__. "I wanted to speak with you, if I could, about what plans you have for the summer."_

_"Plans, Professor? I don't have plans. Unless there's an assignment?"_

_She shook her head. "No assignment, Tom, just...do you," she hesitated, "What kinds of activities does the orphanage have available during the summer for you to engage in?"_

_At mention of the orphanage, Tom stiffened. "Nothing, Professor Granger," he said lowly, picking at the binding of his book. "Not really. It's a Muggle place so I can't even bring home my texts without having to hide and bury them around the grounds." _

_Hermione's incited grimace fought for control over the more stoic expression she was struggling with. Habitually, she tapped his fidgeting fingers with her own to get him to stop fussing with his book and she said fiercely, "That's about what I thought." She then added, "I know that you've not known me for long, Tom, but can you do something for me this summer?"_

_Absently rubbing at his hand where hers had swiped at him, Tom responded as properly as he was taught to at the very place they were speaking about. "Yes, Professor."_

_She peered at him from the corner of her eye and her look softened. Hermione began her own fiddling, plucking up little blades of __grass__ and picking them apart, whittling them down into tiny bits of nothing before grabbing another cluster and starting all over again. "When you return to the orphanage this summer...just...just try to be good, alright?"_

_Tom, who'd been looking enviously at HER allowed fidgeting, quirked a brow. "Be… __good__, Professor?"_

_At the tone of incredulity at her request – as if to say 'is that all?' – Hermione snorted a small laugh. She nodded, looking over at him again at last and smiled. "Be good. I'm working on something for you and the outcome of it will largely depend on how you behave during this break."_

_"What is it?" _

_She just shook her head. "I can't say outright but," and she paused to look around them before leaning in a bit closer, "I don't like that place."_

_"The orphanage?"_

_"Yes." _

_Her grimace was back and little Tom, as he watched Hermione's expression droop, frowned as well. _

_A short silence stretched between them before she spoke again to say, rather emphatically, "I don't like that you have to go back there...that you don't have a __**choice**__. That you have to hide what you __**are**__. That you can't read and learn and __**practice**__ these things without being thought to be some sort of—" Her words had been getting stronger, that hint of ferocity bleeding into each new syllable before she realized it and stopped herself abruptly. Hermione gnawed at the inside of her cheek, glanced down at the boy at her side and back off towards the picturesque view of the school grounds and resumed plucking up the most stubborn blades of __grass__. "I don't like it."_

_Tom stared openly at his instructor, at the very obvious ways she was trying to fidget out the emotions that she seemed otherwise not allowed to express. He stared and he thought and he seemed to consider that, whatever she was working on, it was unlikely that she would succeed, but he, too, turned his gaze forward and said, "I don't like it either."_

* * *

A/N: I'm not saying paradox but ¯\\_(ツ)_/¯ Chapter 27 is mostly written and will be heading to beta soon. Should hopefully be up sooner than the last one but no promises because work is a thing. Thanks everyone for sticking with me and hope to be posting again for you soon! If you need to contact me, I'm on Tumblr! User name is in my profile here. All the e-hearts to you.


	28. Chapter 27 - Alignment (Book II)

**27 – Alignment**

"_But he'd be just a boy…a baby!"_

_She was disgusted, appalled._

"_He's a monster. He's always __**been**__ a monster; don't let any of his appearances fool you. It's time that we took care of this once and for all! We __**must**__ cut off the head of the snake." _

_He was desperate._

"_But sir, please—"_

"_Have you forgotten all that he, all his ideals have done? All they've taken from us? From YOU?"_

"_Of course I haven't!" _

"_This…this will never end. Not unless we stop it before it ever began!"_

"_Y-you can't ask me to do this! He was only ever a man and what you're saying… Killing him then, it's not the way! Kingsley, it's crazy! It's—"_

"_It's for the good of us all, Hermione!"_

_They both flinched._

_She'd never seen him so lost, so frantic. Not as long as she'd known him._

"_I'm sorry. This…i-it's not easy, I know, but we're counting on you. What is left of The Ministry…we're—we…I am counting on you."_

"…_yes, Minister…"_

. . .

November 1943

Hermione's eyes opened sluggishly to the sight of her dim and blissfully still empty dorm room. Her heart felt heavy and her brain felt full alongside a steadily mounting pressure rubbing itself along the backs of her lids and temples like some foul cat. She was almost positive her eyeballs would pop from her sockets in any moment if it kept at it—and what bloody _day_ was it, anyway?

After several more minutes of groaning and determining that she felt less rested than before she'd fallen asleep, Hermione clawed herself free from her blankets. She quickly came to realize that she'd only slept into the late afternoon and her housemates would likely be returning in annoyingly loud droves any moment now. Still pulling herself from her dream addled haze, Hermione felt exponentially more exhausted as the details from those dreams reemerged.

"What's the meaning of it all?" Hermione asked while pressing the heels of her hands to the aching sides of her head. Her voice was loud in the stillness of the room and, while she obviously had not expected to hear a reply come from the room, she began to grow anxious at the uncharacteristic silence within her head.

Grimacing, Hermione attempted to dig further into her mind, searching for the taunting, teasing voice that had always seemed to be more than ready to harass her at every misstep before. "I said, _what_ is the meaning of this?"

She was sure her blatant agitation carried clearly through her question. Just as before, however, the voice remained silent.

"Hermione!" The feel of her own name on her own tongue was strange, but she couldn't think of any other way to address her Elder self. "HERMIONE!" she hissed, "Answer me!"

When the consciousness she sought continued to elude her, bringing the voice's silence to a record high, Hermione scrambled off of her bed on wobbly legs and clambered over to one of the Heather's bedsides. She haphazardly rifled through the trunk nearby until she found a small tabletop mirror and snarled at her reflection. "What is going on?!"

The girl looking back at her, face twisted in an aggravated sneer, startled her as being entirely too plain and sallow even in this faded light. The last time Hermione had seen herself she had been primed and primped and all dressed up for the masque. Even though she'd anticipated the excess rouge and lip color to be faded, the sight of such a sickly complexion left in its wake made her gape. Great, dark circles hung heavily beneath her eyes and a strikingly hollow shadow beneath each cheekbone stole years from her youthful complexion. Her fingers absently passed over her lips, feeling the dried, cracked skin there, too shocked at her own reflection to even flinch when she brushed the tender, bleeding breaks in the flesh. This image of herself so worn and haggard from her barrage of dreams tipped her anxiety up over the edge.

Hermione growled her questions at the mirror once more, shaking its frame desperately. "Where are you? You can't simply be _silent_ now! What do these visions mean_?_ ANSWER ME, DAMN YOU!"

_**. . .damming the river does not stem the flow. . .**_

The voice was sudden and loud, overtaking all of her senses entirely with its mere presence. Hermione's hands trembled, the mirror nearly falling from her hands when the pulse pounding ache in her head beat through her skull with the hum of each syllable.

That voice, she _knew_ that voice.

"Y-you," Hermione stammered, cradling her head in one hand and the mirror in the other. "You're…from…from the forest…who are you?"

For a moment, there was a brief flicker of another's image transposed over Hermione's reflection. A flash of blackened, dead eyes with the barest glint of shining red irises blinked back. Gaunt, hollowed cheeks and crimson lips quirked in the slightest smirk and then it was gone. Hermione gaped, searching her overstuffed memory for where she'd glimpsed that visage before but there was too much in her head and everything was starting to fog.

"Who _ARE_ you?!" Hermione snapped, much more frantically than a moment ago.

"Existential crisis, Callaghan?"

She whirled around to see two of the Heather girls fresh from their afternoon classes taking up the space just beyond the doorway.

"Hey!" One of them called, stomping into the room and snatching the mirror from Hermione's grip. "What are you doing with my things?"

Hermione sneered reflexively at the girl's sudden movement, a low hiss sliding from her throat. The girl drew back behind her friend, wide eyed.

"What's your problem?" The other one snapped.

Only Hermione's eyes shifted from one Heather to the other, making the meeker of the two clutch her mirror tightly to her chest and back farther away. It took a second for Hermione to realize that the Heather she'd covered in boils was not either of these two. "Sorry, ladies." She ignored the question and spoke in a tone that suggested she was anything _but_ sorry. "I didn't hear you come in." Padding back to her bed and gathering some books and her bag, Hermione asked without an ounce of sympathy, "Will your 'captain' be around soon? Last I remember was her poor boil-ridden body convulsing on the floor over there. I would like to thank her about her warnings about Tom Riddle."

The timid Heather spoke up. "She's in hospital—proper, I mean. St. Mungo's. Madam couldn't do much for her here so she—she was transported f-for treatment."

Hermione blinked slowly, watching the meeker girl's lip trembling and her eyes grow glossy in the low light of the room. Her gaze slid then to the more vocal of the pair, noting how clearly _that_ Heather seemed entirely care free. "That's such a shame. I'm sure you are both _utterly _stricken with grief. How _are_ you holding up, Heather?"

The bold Heather shrugged. "Managing," she said with poorly feigned sadness. "Someone's got to take care of Heather's affairs though."

_**They're like vultures, these girls . . . scavengers . . . moving in on the territory of one after the other has fallen.**_

A wave of nausea nearly bowled her over as those coolly spoken words thrummed again in Hermione's ears. She barely caught herself on the edge of her bed, one hand clutching the mattress and the other her head. "_Stop_ talking," Hermione growled suddenly, eyes scrunched tightly shut.

The pair of Heathers drew back with dumbfounded and offended looks upon their faces.

"_YOU_ stop talking!" The bold one huffed. "You're the one that asked me the question!"

"Gods, what is _wrong_ with you?"

"_Circe_, I think she needs to go back to the wing—"

With another more guttural, more savage noise, Hermione fumbled around her bed in a hurry. She tugged a thick, fluffy jumper over her head and her leather satchel onto a shoulder, stumbling over herself towards the exit. Hermione managed to slip her shoes on the wrong feet and shove past the Heathers in haste.

Meek Heather clutched her mirror more tightly to her chest, frowning deeply. "She is _completely _mental."

. . . . .

When in doubt, go to the library.

It was a motto that had served Hermione well over the years and, with her skull feeling as though it were about to crack open at any moment, it seemed as good an idea as any. Upon her arrival, she'd ducked past the familiar librarian and back into the corner of the library that may as well have been her second home. She didn't waste time setting up at one of the back tables, and instead marched straight into one of the nooks she favored. Hermione had barely set down her bag before whispers seeped from the walls and invaded her mind. They didn't seem to belong to the same heady, thrumming entity invading her skull from before, but they were no more welcome than it.

"_You're not supposed to be here, you know...you're liable to get in trouble."_

"Be. _**Quiet**_," she snarled at no one in particular. Stubbornly ignoring the hissing in her ears, Hermione summoned several tomes from her bag. Her shaking hands and unfocused incantation jerked them from the depths of the satchel and launched them from its confines to scatter across the nook's floor. _"Bollocks!"_

"_...are you even listening to me?"_

"**NO." **Hermione's hands scrabbled over the covers of her books, searching for her book of children's tales to help chase away the fatigue and mess of confusion scratching at her consciousness. Anxiousness was bubbling up and into her limbs. The need to find it was frantic, _urgent_, and she knew—she knew, she knew, she just _**knew**_—that she would feel better when she had her hands on it. "Where…where, where, where, where, WHERE?!"

The scenes—these visions—they'd been at their worst when she'd been holed up in that stupid infirmary and that _stupid_ Mediwitch had refused to grant her the request of fetching her books during this particular stay. And all for what? The insistence that she "sleep" and "rest?" _Nonsense._ If she could have gotten hands on her book she could've leeched just a _touch_ of the magical energy it held and been rejuvenated by now.

She _**knew**_ this.

She just needed to find it now in her mess of tomes.

She would be able to concentrate—she _would—_if only she could just get her hands on that stupid bloody BOOK.

_**And just how DO you know that, girl?**_

That woman's voice boomed throughout Hermione's head so loudly and suddenly that she let out a short yelp of surprise and clapped her hands over her ears. Realizing only after the fact that she'd shrieked far louder than Pince would deem acceptable, Hermione stayed utterly still save for the careful way she peeled her hands from her ears, listening and watching outside the nook for any sign of the librarian. When all seemed clear, she breathed methodically in an attempt to calm herself and focus.

She squinted at the tomes spread out before her, none of them being the one she sought, though she still eyed them all as her disjointed thoughts tripped over one another. There was a most persistent whisper, strangled and hissing like a gas leak insisting that she need not worry about _how_ and merely hold true to her task. As quickly as it had come, however, it dissipated, leaving her unsettled.

Hermione swallowed thickly, hands now hovering over the covers of her books. Against the whisper's advice, she attempted to recall the details and found herself hammering at a brick wall. It required immense effort for her to dig and dig and dig until some semblance of an answer surfaced about the book and a numbness washed over her as a robotic sentence fell from her lips. "It is unnecessary to know." She felt herself speak but the impulse and tone of the words made her blood run cold.

_**Interesting. **_

A smile could almost be heard in the presence's voice.

_**And you do not wonder at all why she sent YOU back instead of handling such a pivotal task herself?**_

Hermione's heart rate picked up as though the speaker had a hard line directly into her most treacherous thoughts and doubts.

_**Or why IS it that there is such a strict timeline for what you're doing here? That doesn't make you the least . . . bit . . . curious . . .?**_

Hermione fought internally with trying to remember reasoning for everything. A piece of her felt that she knew and that she had always known, but for the life of her in those moments, she was completely unable to pull the explanations to the surface. At last, something that rung inside of her as "truth" bubbled up and out of her mouth. "It is irrelevant. She understands the best path for our most optimal outcome. Questioning her is idiotic and shall _not _be tolerated." As soon as the response left her, panic began to climb in her chest.

The voice laughed, seemingly delighted.

_**Do your strings hurt you, puppet? Are they tight and chafing or do you enjoy being so pinioned?**_

The unsettling taunting rang of more truth than the statement she'd uttered moments before. Hermione felt more of those programmed words trying to escape and physically bit down on her tongue to stop them. Amidst her pained yelp, she hissed her earlier question into the mess of whispers crowding her within the nook. "Who _are_ you?!" She shakily picked herself up off of the ground, head pounding, knees wobbling, and her limbs so very, very weak. "Are you a friend?"

_**Friend.**_

The word was repeated in amusement.

_**You have no friends here.**_

Angry and frightened now, Hermione raised her voice to a shouted whisper. "Why should I listen to you then?! Why should I _trust_ you?!"

It chuckled, a sound that scraped along the insides of Hermione's skull and nearly brought her back down to her knees.

_**There is nothing to trust in this world but yourself, dear. I do not ask for your trust, I merely implore that you stop a moment and think for yourself.**_

"Why?" The question was out quickly and Hermione pressed a palm to her temple to help ward off the suddenly fading pain.

There was no answer.

Hesitantly, she staggered from the inside of the nook back to the broader research area of the section. The further from the confining walls she moved, the quieter the whispers became until the disturbing quiet took back up in their place. "Hello?" Hermione tried, carefully at first, then angrily added, "Who the bloody hell ARE you?!"

"Miss Callaghan!"

Hermione jumped and yelped in surprise again, whirling around in her spot to come face to face with the sour faced librarian. "Madam Pince! I-I'm sorry. I did not hear your approach."

"Yes, well, perhaps it would behoove you to adopt similar qualities of stealth to encourage you to cease your tromping about. Particularly because this is a _library_ and not a circus."

"I apologize, Madam," Hermione said quickly, dipping her head while bracing her weight on a nearby shelf, "It will not happen again."

"Certainly not this evening, it won't. It is nearly curfew." Pince gave Hermione a bit of stern side eye and sniffed. "We shall see if your faculties escape you again in the future, however. Now, if you would please collect your belongings and return to your dorm, that would be splendid. Failure to do so will require that I report to your Head of House that you are out after hours."

"Yes, Madam." For the first time ever, Hermione felt almost grateful to be ushered from the library and made to gather her things. She could feel the heat of the librarian's stare on the back of her neck as she returned to the nook to collect her books, though miraculously, Pince refrained from commenting on her use of an otherwise unsanctioned research area. It wasn't until she moved to walk past Pince again that the woman did speak.

"Are these _also _your tomes that are so carelessly discarded here?" The sneer was clear in her tone.

Hermione stopped and turned to look in her direction, confused. "What tomes?"

Pince scoffed and huffed so hard that she choked a little on her own disdain. Coughing, she drew a handkerchief from her sleeve to wipe the bit of spittle from the corner of her mouth before reaching for a pair of books on the ground. "_These_ tomes," she said.

The librarian plucked them up, her spittle covered hanky hand smudging the top book's cover while the other scooped the stack onto the opposite palm. Hermione's nose scrunched in silent disgust as the cloth smeared over the gilded lettering. Her grimace lasted all the way up until Pince extended the stack out to her, the color draining entirely from her face when her widened eyes settled onto the title.

_The Tales of Beedle the Bard_.

Either oblivious or simply uncaring towards Hermione's sudden, frozen stature, Pince impatiently sighed while still holding the stack up like a platter. "Well?"

Just being within eyeshot of the book again, Hermione could feel the pulse of it in her ears. It made goosebumps rise on her arms. She could almost hear the thing calling to her and bidding that she take it and open it and _read_ it _**RIGHT**_ then. After all, she'd been gone so long, away for _so_ many days. Wouldn't it feel better to just _touch_ it?

But, with new questions now circling in her head about her mission, similar questions began to arise about this _thing_. Since her consciousness had been so strangely split, Hermione had thought she'd known everything there was to know, yet all it had taken was one mysterious voice to call _everything_ into question. Internally, she chastised herself for being so easily swayed by what this unnamed entity had to say – _what sane person trusted disembodied voices in one's head, anyway?_ – and then she began to doubt what, or _who_, else she may have been so easily influenced by.

All it took was the tiniest seed of doubt to resonate with and stir questions that had already lain dormant and, at once, Hermione had no idea who to trust.

_One_ thing was for certain, however: she could not simply leave her horcrux _here._

"Yes," Hermione said finally, resigned.

Pince huffed again, seemingly exasperated at the time the girl took to toil over recognizing her book. "Miss Callaghan, allow me to be frank. I have seen you, here, researching day in and day out. I see MANY students, every day, all day, and believe me when I tell you that I understand potential when I see it. There are just some things that one can tell about a person through the way they research and the topics they entertain. That being said, _you_ have potential, however, in order to be successful, one must respect and take care of the tools that they have used the elevate themselves." She shoved the stack further towards Hermione, not noticing much of the way she flinched slightly back. "These books, these tomes, they are _instrumental_ sources of knowledge for which to help you grow into a great woman, Miss Callaghan. Even something so small as a book of fairy tales must be respected for what it is worth. Take care of your books and they shall take care of _you_."

Hermione did her best to listen to the librarian all while staring, pale faced, at the horcrux humming and thumping so very close to her breast. She could feel the moisture drain from her mouth, the insides of her cheeks and back of her tongue stinging as a bit of bile tickled and taunted their edges. There was a brief, irrational moment of envy as Hermione hated this woman who was so oblivious to the hideousness that lay in the proffered book before she eventually swallowed it down, nodded, and shifted the sleeves of her jumper to cover her hand before gingerly plucking it from the stack to move it into her bag. Hermione took great pains to be very careful not to touch its cover or its pages with any stretch of her skin and found herself thankful when Pince, despite a curiously raised brow, chose not to comment.

Hermione nodded once more, making to leave again but was halted by Pince's annoyed tone. "You don't want your _other_ tome?"

She looked up again, confused by the question and about to say that she was not missing any other ones, when she saw this one's cover as well.

_Mind Over Matters: Surpassing Boundaries and Harnessing Your Inner Self_.

The sensation of cold spectral fingers dancing down her spine and nudging her between her shoulder blades made her shudder. Hermione glanced up to see Pince's pinched face before reaching to take this one as well.

"Thank you, Madam," she said hurriedly while putting this one into her bag also. "And thank you for your…advice."

Pince's harsh look finally lessened for the first time since she'd come upon the girl and she offered Hermione the smallest of smiles. "Of course, Miss Callaghan. I am always happy to be of assistance."

. . . . .

Abraxas tucked himself rather neatly into a recessed sitting area near the courtyard and waited for the others to finish their morning meal. Bundled in his coat and scarf, all ready to join them on the first Hogsmeade weekend of the month, he had slipped away a bit early to continue some side research he had sent off for.

He was still unsure what to make of his Lady, but he knew that if he wanted to understand the Mudbloods before making any drastic decisions about her he would need to understand more of their culture. From what his contacts of contacts had owled him, the pages of this text were under a great deal of controversy within the Mudblood world. What else would stir so much trouble but secrets? Now, if there was anything a Malfoy was good at, it was learning all sorts of secrets. Obtaining the text had been much easier than he had anticipated although Abraxas did not delude himself with any sense of relief. He knew, without any shadow of a doubt, that if either of his parents found out he'd willfully come to possess such tainted material it would be _much_ more than a slap on the wrist.

It was with that baleful knowledge he took a quick glance around himself to be sure no one was too near and inched a small stack of coverless hand-bound pages from his inner coat pocket and flipped to read where he'd left off. The writing, for the most part, was a bit jumbled as Abraxas had to call in such a grand favor from a friend in Italy and the script had then had to be translated twice over to avoid obvious detection: once from English into Italian and then a second time from Italian to French. It was obvious that the grasp on at least the second translation's syntax was a bit rough, but he was able to make do.

He would have to make do.

Fleeting thoughts of the way his Lady had looked, bruised, battered, and nearly broken upon the forest floor and similarly laid upon the hospital cot swept through his head and he shook it to be clear of them. Even with his sense of duty in flux, Abraxas knew the direction his heart leaned but he bade himself to hold strong, to at least work to understand the savages before deciding to fall completely into line with them.

So he continued to read.

He read and he read and he…wasn't _entirely_ sure he understood _**what**_ he was reading beyond, perhaps, some sort of biography? The notes belonged to some Mudblood named Constance Chatterley with excerpts cited as belonging to, what he supposed was a male Mudblood with the initials _'D.H.L.'_ It had quickly become evident that what notes he'd managed to receive had been improperly stacked and labeled. Thus far, however, from what he was able to gather, Abraxas was floored to discover that the Mudbloods' caste system was seemingly not all that different from their own. Studiously, he turned another page, gaze falling immediately upon the strangest line that was wholly out of place among the other passages before it. One that made his eyes go wide and a furious red shade climb into his pale patrician features in an instant.

'_. . .Whilst all her womb was open and soft, and softly clamouring, like a sea-anemone under the tide, clamouring for him to come in again and make a fulfilment for her. . .'_

"_Oy! Malfoy! Over here!"_

Abraxas' entire body jolted at the sound of his name and he made a terrible show of juggling the mess of hand-bound pages before shoving them back into the depths of his coat, hiding the filthy Muggle words from anyone's potential viewpoint. Shooting off the bench as though being far, _far_ from its spot would divest himself of any evidence of his questionable reading, Abraxas joined Avery and the others where they'd taken to hovering while waiting for the release with the chaperones.

"Any sign of our fearless leader yet?" Avery asked after greeting Abraxas.

It was Rosier that answered with a shake of his head. "Do you pay attention to _anything_ that's happening around you or what?"

Avery scowled and reached out to swat at the other boy. "What's that supposed to mean?"

"Tom _can't_ come," Rosier replied, dodging the swipe. "Slughorn pinned him with that project to work on, remember?"

"He can't even get away for the weekend?" Avery asked skeptically, looking between Rosier and the others.

Mulciber gave him a broad shouldered shrug. "Even if he weren't doing that, Tom wouldn't come. He never comes."

"_Never?_" Avery's question was toeing the line between incredulity and suspicion. He looked to Abraxas for confirmation.

Abraxas tried not to shift on his feet.

Tom's familial heritage was a topic that was never discussed, though one he'd had the foolish nerve to broach years ago after first hearing Tom's vision for himself and for them. Some were still skeptical of the contents but any self-respecting Pureblood – particularly one of the Malfoy line – knew the ins and outs of the Sacred Twenty-Eight. As such, he'd picked out very quickly that _'Riddle'_ was not on that list of names. A little more persistent digging and Abraxas had discovered much more of Tom's origins and why he was always so absent from their trips as well as why he'd never spotted the boy with any parents of note seeing him on or off the platform at start and end of term.

Abraxas had presented splendid blackmail to Tom requesting a high ranking seat in this newly proposed circle of power, content to let the Half-blood do all the work for him if he were so inclined. A scant few days later he received an owl from his father that his mother had suddenly become very, _very_ ill with a terrible case of Dragon Pox that was resisting all attempts at treatment. Tom had offered Abraxas his _most _sincere condolences and a very small vial of an unlabeled liquid to take with him when he went home to visit his dying mother.

This was, of course, before Abraxas had ever divulged the contents of the letter he'd received.

Abraxas went home, delivered just a few drops of said liquid with a cup of tea to his disease stricken mother and returned to Hogwarts with grand news of his mother's miraculous recovery.

The rest, as they say, was history.

"Never." Abraxas shrugged. "Tom doesn't care for the little town much, calls it juvenile." At Avery's raised eyebrow he snorted. "What? Can you really imagine him settling back and 'having a butterbeer with the boys?' Or perusing Honeydukes' selection of sugar quills?"

At that Avery seemed to settle some. It _was_ absurd to imagine Tom doing anything relatively 'normal' wasn't it?

"Well…that's fortuitous then in a way," Avery said, motioning the others closer. "At least we can discuss the 'Persephone problem' without complication."

Her name still made some of them twitch reflexively and, even knowing better, look around them for any sign of Tom Riddle.

It wasn't Tom that appeared, but the very girl in question.

Lestrange spotted her first, noting that she looked much worse for wear than he personally recalled. Even from a distance, he could pick out the pale shade of her skin and the contrasting dark shadows rimming her eyes and coloring in the hollows of her cheeks. What was more striking, however, was the Slytherin green Quidditch cloak she was carrying in her arms. When she was close enough, he was able to get a clear read on the name branded on the back and nodded in the direction of the approaching witch. "Malfoy, I think you're about to have company."

Abraxas opened his mouth to question him when a soft tapping on his shoulder caused him to turn and come to face the petite Persephone Callaghan.

"Good morning, Abraxas."

Her voice was a bit hoarse and Abraxas couldn't stop himself from gawking a little. He hadn't seen her since his last visit in the ward and he'd been left to toil over the awful truth scribed into her forearm. "Miss Callaghan," he greeted and knew it sounded stiff. "You're looking well." He flinched at the awful lie _that_ was.

She quirked a brow. "Your propriety and kindness are appreciated," Persephone started with a slight smirk, "but I am well aware I look like shite."

Avery snorted from where he was leaning on a pillar and it drew Persephone's gaze; she scowled.

"Can we speak somewhere a bit more…private?"

Hesitant at the idea of being anywhere that could even be construed as 'alone' with this girl, Abraxas swallowed. With the intense and curious stares of his mates on his back and the expectant look of this girl at his front, he finally did begin to fidget. At his obvious waffling, Persephone's relaxed, easy look darkened into something far less pleasant. Internally, he cursed at every decision that he'd made in his life up to that moment and gestured with a sweeping arm towards his previously vacated sitting area. "Of course."

Only once sufficiently away from the immediate prying of eyes and ears did she offer up the neatly folded cloak. "I wanted to thank you…and…um…return this to you."

Abraxas watched a faint tinge of pink color the tops of her cheeks and her nose, her shoulders shrugging lightly and everything about her body language making her seem so dainty and delicate and small. He gulped again at what that did to his flopping stomach, but graciously accepted the return of his cloak.

"Please, mention nothing of it, Miss Callaghan." _Especially near Tom and the others…please don't._ "I did what anyone would have done in a similar situation." Persephone looked up at him from beneath her lashes and he swore internally with _**every**_ foul word he knew at the way those deep dark depths of brown looked at him; the pages of Muggle research felt terribly heavy in his coat pocket.

"Still…" she pressed.

"Truly, think nothing of it," he interjected quickly. He could tell that the somewhat terse tone did not go unnoticed by the way she straightened suddenly. Abraxas tried to smooth it over as fluidly as possible. "Can I…expect to see you in town today?"

The line of her mouth thinned, lips pursing in a way that showed obvious displeasure. "No." The single word came out harshly and a moment later, she too attempted to soften her words. "Not this time. Madam Aubrey has seen to it that I will not be participating in anything extracurricular or, in a word, _fun_ for at least another week until she is satisfied with my clocked hours of 'rest.'"

_That_ sent a guilty wash of relief through Abraxas from head to toe. He managed to control the relieved grin struggling to clamber onto his face. "Oh…that _is_ a shame. I'm sorry to hear that…but you know, she is a trained Mediwitch. Your restrictions shall be over before you know it, surely. And certainly, if there is anything that I—"

"Yes," she said quickly, plainly, and obviously already weary of the verbal dance. Persephone produced a folded piece of parchment from inside the cover of a tome with gilded lettering on the spine that read _Mind Over Matters_ and held it up between them. "I have a list of things that I need from town that I was hoping you would be so kind as to fetch for me."

"Well, I—" Abraxas began backpedaling immediately. Even those two words earned him a darker look from the small witch before him. "—that is to say, I am unsure if I would have the time to assist you today."

"No _time_?"

"Y-yes." He felt his eyes shifting towards her left arm and willed them up to firmly fix on her face. "Tom has called a meeting that is likely due to last most of the day." Abraxas saw one of her eyes twitch at the mention of Tom and a small trickle of sweat beaded at his hairline, wriggling its way down his neck and spine.

"_Tom _has, has he?" She asked and all pretenses of kindness in her voice was gone.

"Y-yes…my Lady…" Abraxas added the last with great hopes of self-preservation.

Persephone's heated stare seemed to cool slightly at that. "…of course he has."

"I _am_ sorry my—"

"No, no…we wouldn't want him to become suspicious of you as I am sure he likely keeps very close tabs on all of your activities, does he not?"

"Oh, yes. He does tend to…" Abraxas paused, seeming to be searching for a particular word.

"_Micromanage,_" Persephone said sourly. "Because of course he does." Chasing away a scowl, she pulled forth a smile that didn't meet her eyes. "Best that you be on your way then. I shall figure out something else."

Abraxas nodded, bowing his head in as covert a manner as possible so the others wouldn't see. "Yes, my Lady."

She left him in a huff with a sneer decorating her face as she tucked her list back into her book. Abraxas watched her storm off, wobbling slightly every third step or so and willed away the mixture of dread and guilt and yearning all churning together in his gut.

. . . . .

While the general populace of Hogwarts, third years and above, were busy milling about in town during their first Hogsmeade visit of the month, Tom had already been brewing Slughorn's potions for the past several hours. Aside from his sudden bout of exhaustion the previous long night, he found one of the perks of having half of your soul tucked into the pages of a book were a drastic decrease in the need for sleep. The downside of needing such little down time, however, was the simple fact that one's brain hardly ever shut off.

For Tom, his overactive mind straddled the line between efficient and productive and utterly sanity sapping.

He found himself doing his best to chase away the persistent desire to mull more thoroughly over his lost time and try to work out how it was that Persephone – for he _knew_ it had to have been her – was responsible. All that he managed, though, was to stir a painful ache in his chest and set all of his nerves and senses onto high alert for anything that came near or into the potions lab. Since he had started brewing that morning, he'd made to do his best to ignore it and, amid his steadfast resolve, managed to crank out all but a mere handful of the draughts and salves that had been requested by Slughorn's contact by that early evening. If he were to guess, he would estimate his leftover brewing time to be at another day or half day at best to complete the order.

It was during this mental calculation that the ever irreplaceable Horace Slughorn entered into his classroom, teetering and wobbling from his apparent stint of "chaperoning" students in town. The odor of strong spirits assaulted Tom's senses the moment the man entered the room and he guessed that the good professor had been very, very busy chaperoning one of the barstools at the Hog's Head.

"Tom! How goes?" The man inquired jovially, cheeks flushed and nose as red as a button.

Tom managed to spare him a patronizing smile just this side of baring too many teeth. "Good evening, Professor. You will be pleased to hear that I've completed four-fifths of the request at this time. Another day and your associate will be set with replenishing their stores."

"Ahhh, good, good, that's wonderful ne—_hic—_ews!" Slughorn smiled and very carefully made his way to where Tom was watching several batches as they simmered and leaned a bit too far to one side, having to catch himself suddenly on the table's edge. "Tom! Did you move this? Please don't move the furniture—throws me off—"

One of Tom's eyes twitched. He managed a bit wider, more firmly placed smile. "My apologies, Professor."

Horace waved him off and leaned heavily onto the table. "No matter! It's fixed easily enough, just remember to put them back."

"…of course…Professor."

"In _any_ case! Tom! I greatly appreciate all the efforts you've put into this project! I wanted to—_hic _—to'be ssure that I came by to let you know."

"Thank you, sir."

"_But_...Tom. I am afraid I have a bit of _bad_ news as well."

Tom's forced smile faltered slightly, both brows ticking up in thinly veiled irritation. "Oh?"

"Yes." Slughorn's own brows knit together in seriousness. "_Grave_ news, I'm afraid." The older wizard wobbled over to a stool, taking one or two swipes at it with a palm before more confidently relating its distance to him and plopping down on the edge. "I received an owl from the post while in town and there was another attack in Italy—no casualties but many injured."

His fake smile was entirely gone now. "You mean to say…"

Slughorn was already nodding, leaning back on his stool and folding his hands over his slightly rounded stomach. "A new immediate and increased need for healing salves and the like." He glanced over at Tom's withering stare and reached over to pat him on the shoulder. "Oh, don't worry, my boy. As I said, no casualties, but we have, once again, been called to action!"

"_We_ have, sir…?"

The man was nodding. "It should only be another week or so to fill the order for this batch but I _do_ have some good news."

"Wonderful," Tom said flatly. "Please tell me the _good_ news, Professor."

And, as though he'd just won himself a delightful prize, Slughorn tucked his thumbs beneath his lapels and puffed up proudly. "Miss Callaghan has finally been released from the Hospital Wing just yesterday! She will, once again – after I speak with her – most assuredly be up to the task of helping us!"

If he'd had feathers, they would have been ruffled. Even _without_ having feathers, they were ruffled. As a matter of fact, Tom was quite sure if he did have feathers, he would have been molting from the stress and agitation this rotund idiot was causing him. "That's—"

"_Wonderful_, isn't it, Tom?" Slughorn chortled excitedly and clapped Tom on the shoulder with great enthusiasm. "With Miss Callaghan's help, we'll get through it in _no_ time!"

Tom was unsure if he was _actually_ snarling or if the noise was just his anger vibrating within his own skull. The carefree look of his Head of House would have him infer that it was the latter.

Pushing to his feet, Slughorn teetered and sputtered before turning a slightly lopsided smile onto one of his most prized students. "I think in light of this brilliant news, you should go on and call it an early night, Tom! No need to run yourself ragged any further tonight. We will begin again bright and early tomorrow morning!"

"Tomorrow morning," Tom echoed. "You are not 'chaperoning' tomorrow's visit as well, Professor?"

The question appeared to catch Slughorn off guard and he had the decency to blush. "Ah," he began, "yes, well. I _do_ have the responsibility of escorting the students into town tomorrow as well, _**but**_ I have complete and utter faith that you will be able to start us off once more! I will be back around this time tomorrow and I can take over for you from there."

Tom was smiling again, though this time it was to ensure that he was not hissing hexes at the wizard standing before him. Tom spoke as best he could through his tightly clenched teeth. "Brilliant, Professor. Positively. Brilliant."

Professor Slughorn tittered, slapped Tom firmly on his back and bid him farewell.

Tom was smiling well beyond the exit of his Professor.

"Bloody. **Brilliant.**"

* * *

**A/N:** Special thanks on this one to Colubrina for the suggestion of what "research" novel Abraxas ended up using to figure out those silly Mudbloods. For anyone that's not following me on Tumblr, this chapter was split off from the next chapter because it was just running far too long to be released as one thing. I am continuing to write and work on this all as I can during breaks at work and when I get free time at home but, ya know, work and the mortal necessity for food and sleep is a thing. Thank you to everyone who continues to review and support me as I am able to update. All the e-hearts! :)


	29. Chapter 28 - Perpetual Motion (Book II)

**A/N: **Remember, warnings. All of them.

* * *

**28 – Perpetual Motion**

November 1943

Where there was a will, there was a way.

This was something that Hermione knew _intimately._ Since happening across the book during her sudden run in with Pince, she had been reading and researching more about the subjects discussed within the pages of the mind magic tome. The ingredients she'd bid Abraxas to fetch for her were necessary for a spell she'd found that she hoped would allow her better insight on her "Elder" problem at hand and, though he had declined her task, she was resilient enough to not allow that to deter her plans. So, while the rest of the students were in town gallivanting about carelessly, she explored more deeply into this new tome and focused on cementing the appropriate words and gestures for the spell work.

Best case scenario: if she was to use less than optimal ingredients and substitutions, she would still be able to succeed in her task of whittling away at certain targeted barriers in her head if she perfected everything else. She would peel away the screen blocking her view to these instances and scenes that she just couldn't recall, and she would expose exactly what sort of manipulations where at hand by her older self – if she was, in fact, _actually_ her older self.

Worst case scenario: she would open a pocket within her mind that would drive her to the point of an insanity so pure that ripping out and consuming her own tongue would seem like a jolly good jaunt in the park and entirely on the up and up as far as things to do that day.

The idea of willfully bowing in subservience to even another instance of herself made her guts churn and a hatred deeply seated within her flare to life. It made the decision an easy thing, all things considered.

Hermione Granger belonged to _no one_ – not anymore, _**never**_ again.

The day had gone on and she prepared.

The students and staff returned to the grounds.

The people ate and they slept and they dreamed…and _that_ is when she moved.

Quietly, so quietly, Hermione snuck to the abandoned classroom where so much had already happened before. Here, she would conduct her experiment. Here, she would command the wards and masks of the room back into place. Here, she would expose these nattering voices in her head for what they truly were and finally – _hopefully _– have some sense of peace…or at least the ability with which to choose her own path.

It was with this in mind that she shakily set out the subpar ingredients she was able to procure. Too much of her day had been spent sneaking about, gathering them from her housemates' trunk or even some stealthy maneuvers into and out of one professor's classroom or another while they were preoccupied with their outing. As she knelt on the cold stone, eyeing the mortar full of ground clovers, rue, rosemary, and bat wings while she wriggled a cheap, purloined garnet pendant from its pronged setting, Hermione hoped with what little of it she held that the time spent on her wand work would get her through; for this spell called for sympathetic magic.

For the magic to work, a large component required in the spell's workings was needed; an item of note that belonged to that which expectedly assisted in raising the mental barriers that were sought to be dissolved. Hermione paused in her movements to gingerly remove a small, thin book from her bag and set it before her.

A living fragment of the soul from the person that segregated her mind housed _within_ the vessel that was likely being used to sustain these walls was more than appropriate, right?

_What __**ever**__ could go wrong with that? _Hermione thought ruefully and breathed deeply, steadying herself for seeing this _thing_ once again.

The book was wrapped in a thick wad of cloth and then wrapped once more in a thick fold of leather. Hermione took great time and care to undo all that she had done without ever getting near to touching the book to her skin. Immediately, upon being exposed to the air of the room, a heady heartbeat pounded in her ears and hisses and whispers crawled over her skin. It was easier to hear the wretchedness behind their sickeningly honeyed words after even just a week of being separated from its touch.

It was no easier to resist its pull, however.

Hermione swallowed, hands shaking hurriedly as she muttered a spell to crack the garnet and grind it into the rest of the herbal mess. All the while, she thought of everything she could to pull herself away from the broken serenade of _'power'_ and _'praise'_ and _'freedom'_ purring at her from the pages.

_Lies, _she reminded herself. _They're lies. __**Focus.**_

_But…what if that other voice was the liar,_ it said.

_Who were they, anyway? _It asked.

_What credentials do __**they**__ have? _It hissed.

_**They**__ don't understand but __**she**__ has our best and most optimal future in mi—_

"_**SHUT UP!"**_ Hermione shouted suddenly, panting and vision coming back into focus with one hand reaching for the solution she'd mixed in her empty dorm while the other was so very close to stroking the lettering on the cover. She snatched her hand back, eyes wide and horrified at what her body had nearly done without her permission. Chasing all of her reluctances away, she set her jaw and moved even more quickly to finish the preparation.

The voices became louder, _angrier._

Hermione worked faster, more resolutely in the face of it.

Her wand swept in precise arcs, great and small, over the mortar as she spoke clearly and determinedly the words to the invocation. By the time she was through, the voices were screaming at her failures, screeching in a sickening boom of noise and the concoction smelled vile, of burning hair and skin. She hastily hefted it in hand and, shutting her eyes and readying herself for the worst, Hermione dumped the solution onto the cover of her copy of _The Tales of Beedle the Bard_.

In the first moment, all she could hear was the pounding of her own pulse in her ears. In the second, she realized that the screaming from the horcrux had ceased. But in the third, she also found that nothing else had happened aside from said horcrux now being covered in a smelly, sludgy mess.

With a grimace, she studied the offensive object another minute longer before finally her frown deepened and disappointment weighed heavily in her chest. Hermione sighed. "Should have known better than to—_**AUGH!**_"

In the midst of her self-loathing the book's cover flung open, spattering her with the muck that'd been heaped upon its surface. The awful concoction dripped into her gaping mouth. But before she had a chance to spit and curse about it, a horrifying image of a wound-ravaged woman came screaming from the pages of fairy tales. Overlaying the printed words and unassuming cartoonish scribblings came a flood of blue-white light that scrawled ancient and savage looking runes upon the pages. Hermione's eyes flicked down just long enough to acknowledge they weren't in a language she immediately understood before focusing back on the ghastly visage that was trying to pull herself from the book, scrabbling at the stone as if to save herself from drowning.

_**HEL—P ME—E— ! **_

The woman's image clad in Ministry robes screamed the words, except they weren't words at all, but a blood curdling howl of agony that appeared to be dubbed over the actual movement of her lips.

Hermione screamed and felt herself moving backwards, kicking at the floor to propel her away – _**anywhere**_ that was away.

And the woman continued to crawl, translucent and backlit by the light of the book she was escaping. Her ethereal body jerked and seized every other clawing, desperate movement as more of it became visible, like she was climbing free of some bottomless pit. The farther she moved from the tiny book, the more her ghostly skin melted from her bones. The robes she'd been garbed in tattered and ripped, opening and gaping more to expose slips of skin, or at least stretches of limb where skin should have been; a badge with a name that simply read _'Robinson'_ bobbed ferociously over her breast. Her face thinned and hollowed, her eyes bled and melted from their sockets, and her mouth – that horrible shrill, screaming mouth – kept screeching as the woman's begging thrummed loudly in Hermione's ears.

_**HEL—P ME! E—NO!**_

Hermione's back finally hit the firm surface of the classroom door and the realization that there _was_ nowhere else to go from here hit her just as squarely between the shoulders, knocking the breath from her lungs.

The woman kept dragging herself, one leg lolling awkwardly behind her—obviously twisted at an inhuman degree—that face of hers stretching, thinning, paling even further as the screaming kept reverberating in Hermione's skull. Hyperventilating, Hermione shut her eyes, forgetting any spells or shields or defenses available to her in the face of this _thing_. Its presence pulled her worst fears to the surface and the absence of sight only made it worse as its rage and confusion and dreadpummeled into her body.

The ghoulish thing's cold, clammy hands felt like frostbite as they gripped and slid over her skin. Its maw rattled and gaped, rasping fetid breaths of the dead and dying over her cheeks and neck in tandem with the broken record of pleas skipping in her mind. The spectre's emotions assaulted her senses but amid the chaos, Hermione found a very brief, very _welcome_, moment of peace before she slipped from awareness.

That peace smelled of rosemary and something that could only be described as _home_.

. . .

"I've brought him to you because you seem to be the only one that can control him."

"With all due respect, Headmaster, I don't control him. Tom is an intelligent and clever young man who, if most would actually **converse** with him in an adult manner, would likely understand his actions."

"Be that as it may, Miss Granger, it is in his best educational interest that this be handled before he is expelled. Five of his fellow housemates are in hospital with hex injuries on top of a plethora of physically induced scrapes and bruises. We have to send mailings to their parents this evening and it will be difficult to explain away these injuries in a way that won't call for his removal."

"No! You can't do that!"

"Miss Granger, we can and we will...if we must. Horace is already too easy on the boy because he favours him. Although, I suspect you do as well after the...scene you created over him returning to that perfectly acceptable Muggle orphanage—"

"In the middle of a MUGGLE war!"

"Be that as it may, Miss Granger, he will face the proper consequences for his actions."

"Headmaster, no! Please, sir, you can't take this from him. Here—Hogwarts—this is all he has!"

"Which is why...I am giving you this chance—and only this chance. Talk to Tom. Find out why he did what he did and report back to me. He's been tight lipped about the whole thing and I know the answers he has given aren't the whole of it."

"Yes, sir, Headmaster."

. . .

_Ripples of magic tore and demolished spaces within Hermione's skull and the pain was something beyond the worst migraine she'd ever known. _

_Hermione felt the scratching of nails clawing at her skull from the inside out. The screech of it echoed in her ears, shivers and chills tore through her limbs from the sensation, and her lids fluttered, coming so blearily open. The abandoned classroom she last recalled came into focus…only it wasn't abandoned any longer. In fact, it was anything __**but**__._

_Wall to wall, there were desks and benches, charts and graphs housed in decorative wall hangings and tapestries all along the walls, and all in all a very distinct sense of liveliness came from all corners of the room. It was, Hermione mused fuzzily, a room that felt decidedly comfortable._

_It wasn't until she saw the image of a boy, sitting ramrod straight at a desk in the very far front end of the room with a profile she recognized immediately that she jolted into __**real**__ awareness. "Tom," she gasped despite herself and immediately began trying to locate her wand. When he didn't budge at the sound of her voice her brow furrowed, and she had another very confused look about. That confusion only worsened when she saw a very solid vision of __**herself**__, albeit older, walk through the door she thought she'd still been propped up against and—more jarringly—through __**her.**_

. . .

Hermione entered the classroom where Tom was silently waiting, hands folded on his desk and eyes set forward. She huffed after slamming the door shut, glaring towards the retreating figure on the other side. With that same intensity, Hermione whirled around and huffed right at Tom.

"Well? What's the explanation then? What did you tell them and what do you have to say to _me_?"

Tom's jaw tensed at her aggressiveness but he remained silent.

Hermione waited, staring hard at him, an electric buzz of magic filling the air in the room until she scoffed and tossed her hands up. "Right. So, you're just going to toss away your magical education because...why? What is it you boys fight about that is so bloody important beyond your studies? Hm?" She asked but he remained unmoving. Frustrated to the point of desperation, a certain helplessness bled into her tone. "I thought you had a better head on your shoulders than this! Did you or didn't you want to apply for Minister someday, Tom?"

He was still silent in the face of her agitation but there was a heat to his eyes of his own building anger.

"Right," she said, exasperated, and then again, defeated. "Right. Well...unless you come up with something good, you are going to be expelled for what you did to those boys. So, before all the hard work that you put into your studies is wiped clean thanks to your five minutes of poor decision, tell me-_**please**_-what on earth could have been important enough for you to throw away your future?"

Tom breathed slowly through his nose, jaw tense and twitching. His stare was hard, angry, but seemingly not at Hermione even in the wake of her yelling. He took another long breath to steady himself before he finally responded. "Opinions..." He began slowly as if it were difficult to speak. "...were _expressed_…that I did not care for."

Hermione stared incredulously. "Opinions," she echoed skeptically. "What opinions, Tom? What _words?! _You can't just attack people for saying something you dislike! What could POSSIBLY-"

**"'Mudblood slag.'"**

Hermione's tirade stopped mid-bluster. The emotions on her face flickered from angry to stunned to confused and went straight on into livid. "_**What**_ did you just say to me?"

Only after her magic swelled in barely contained fury, did Tom push to his feet and turned towards her. Swathed in the essence of her crackling energy, his own rose to fill the space and butt up against hers. "They all had a good chuckle over it by the fire. Drinking smuggled rum…laughing…and having a jolly little quip over our _'tidy'_ arithmancy professor. How she is _'so easy on the eyes'_ and how _'they'd love to get a leg over her but it's a pity her blood's so poor. Can't bring a Mudblood slag home to mum and dad no matter __**how**__ pretty she may be.'"_ He took a step closer to her with each and every line of conversation he relayed. His eyes grew darker and angrier with each one.

Hermione swallowed as Tom approached, her resolve visibly shaken as he described the lewd conversation that'd led to his facing expulsion. As he closed in, her expression softened a bit, eyes having to shift up to meet his, although they lingered on something she saw in the taut lines of his face. When he was within half an arm's reach, she let out a breath she'd been holding, greedily gulping down another to stave off the shine building in those eyes.

. . .

_Though she was still working to understand the scene playing out, Hermione felt a sneer creeping onto her face. _

_After everything she'd done for her community, her country. After all the sacrifices she'd made...it still came back to this. It always, always, __**always**__ came back to blood__. _

. . .

Hermione clenched her jaw, head rising in defiance of her own emotions. "It's nothing, Tom," Hermione said and the words sounded hollow. "Just talk." Her lip quivered. "You shouldn't have-"

He stepped into her space and growled, "I SHOULD have and I WOULD again. And _**again**_ if it serves to drill into them never to speak about you in that manner!"

A shuddered breath left her and she looked away. Tom's hand come to rest on her cheek, gentle and careful in contrast to the raging inferno of energy twisting and coiling around her frame. The hand coaxed her to again meet his gaze. He was so close and there was something intimate burning behind that stare of his.

Tom's glare lessened and he took her in from head to toe, his thumb brushing gingerly over the swell of her cheek. "I would do it again," he repeated his earlier sentiment. "I would make them fear the consequences of speaking the words. I would make them regret if they still dared to even _think_ of you in such a way."

"Tom…" Hermione swallowed thickly. "…you mustn't speak like that."

"I shall if it is what's required to show them the real worth of their 'pure' blood…and I will if it is what you require."

. . .

_The purr of his words sent a shiver down Hermione's spine. It took more control than she would ever have cared to admit to focus past such a heady and intensely dark promise. _

_The Hermione before her appeared to be struggling as well. _

. . .

"What I _require_, Tom, is that you be good."

The request made Tom draw back slightly and quirk a brow. "Be good?" He tasted the request on his tongue, thumb still caressing circles over her cheek.

Hermione shut her eyes against his touch, stepping into the circle of his arms. "I need you...to be good," she murmured, tucking her head beneath his chin.

Tom's hand threaded up into her bundled curls, a wordless spell sending them falling free of her haphazard sticking charms so he could fan every strand over his skin. He held her close for a long set of heartbeats then stepped half a pace away once more, angling her head back and pausing to appreciate the long line of her neck with a low rumble of sound.

Hermione's eyes reopened in a daze then shut again. "For me," she whispered. "Please, you've worked so hard, Tom…"

His head bent lower, their breath mingled, his mouth hovering before hers in a rare show of hesitation. Lips trembling, his fingers twitched in her hair but he shook himself from it to murmur, "Only for you. Only _ever_ for you."

. . .

_Hermione had managed to come to her feet as the two embraced. Part of her wanted to be shocked at this picture of herself, older, and locked away in a classroom with Tom Riddle as her student about to…interact with one another. Another, much larger, part of her, however, was far too busy squeezing the breath from her lungs at sight of it to care. _

_Her chest ached and throbbed with a yearning and a hopelessness that stretched beyond the moment and reached into a space she had no name for or real understanding of. This scene warmed her, filled her with a very distinct profound joy and elation and the sweet, addictive sensation of being loved all at the same time it chiseled away at the hope for happiness that was so delicately perched within her mind._

_As Hermione watched Tom close the gap between him and her other self, so careful and calculating with his kiss, she choked out a sob. From her vantage point, she felt the press of his lips and how they ignited a fire beneath her skin at the touch. A soft mewl escaped from the back of her throat and she stumbled while her older self wrapped her arms about his shoulders, fingers delving into his hair, tugging him down. The stunned noise that came from Tom was a mixture of a muffled yelp blended into an overly enthusiastic snarl. _

_It should have been funny, or embarrassing in the least, but instead of laughing, Hermione sobbed. _

_Even as the two moved with haste, basking in their moment under the noses of so many that would oppress either of the pair, Hermione sobbed. _

_Past the coil of intermingled magic and the heated words and touches, there was a deeply seated, soul shaking loss in this kiss. And, though neither of the two felt it, Hermione was frozen by its presence as it bled into her limbs for __**she**__ knew it was there; __**she**__ felt it close on their heels. _

_She __**knew**__ it for she felt it in the scope of a tattered memory that rattled her __**soul.**_

. . .

Pulling away abruptly, Hermione shook her head, eyes shut and her nose brushing against Tom's in a desperate attempt to regain some measure of sense. "We can't—Tom we can't—this isn't possible—"

"And neither is time travel, but we see where that has brought us, haven't we?" Tom's sarcastic reply was somewhat lessened in its effectiveness thanks to the breathy pant that colored the words along with his reverent touches to her slight frame.

"Arse," Hermione murmured before she swept her tongue along the seam of his mouth, earning her a growl and a nip at her lip before he drew it between his teeth and suckled. She gasped when she was hefted up off the ground, apparently barely registering that they were moving until she heard the clattering of items from her desk being swept onto the floor and felt the cold press of the wood beneath her thighs.

. . .

_Hermione somehow remembered her thoughts and how they'd circled themselves in this moment, trying to find logic and reason somewhere in the midst of her frantic clawing at his lapels. _

_It was wrong. Wrong, wrong, wrong, wrong, WRONG._

_The mantra continued but had been swiftly drowned out by the pleasurable heat sweeping through her, pounding out a rhythm in time with the pulse of his power. Tom's magic mingled and wove patterns with hers in a way that massaged all the knots and kinks from her weary body and smoothed all the wrinkles from her very bones. It rose where hers fell, it filled in pieces of her that she'd never known to be missing. _

_Tom Riddle, his touches, his kisses, his magic—__**HE**__ felt like home. He __**was**__home._

_This home faded into blackness._

. . . . .

"…_do you or don't you want me?"_

. . .

"—_I can't do this without you."_

. . .

"…_one thing in this world that I care more about than myself, Hermione…"_

. . .

"_He's a monster. He's always __**been**__ a monster…"_

. . .

"_Return her to me, NOW!"_

. . . . .

The old windows of the abandoned classroom had been long since boarded up but there was an innate, internal pull that signaled the passing from night into day that pulled Hermione into wakefulness.

Despite the awkward way she lay, her front and face pressed to the cold stone and arms spread at her sides in harsh angles, it was the hollow ache of loss that bloomed first in her consciousness. Memories of what she had seen came sluggishly to the surface and with them she felt an uncontrollable moisture seeping from her eyes. This painful, hollow sensation was becoming more and more commonplace and it made the very core of her being tremble in its presence.

Hermione drew in a sharp, shaky breath, pushing to her hands abruptly and casting a look around the room. The spells she'd used to illuminate the place had long since faded and she found herself in an oppressive darkness that made all the unknown and unseen fears in her heart seem all the more tangible the longer she lingered. Pawing at the ground around her, she mumbled a reminder to breathe, insisting on a sensible level of calm from herself as she pretended she _wasn't_ on the verge of a nervous breakdown in those very seconds. The moment that her hand met the familiar feel of her crooked wand, she gasped and gulped back down just enough air to cast a_ lumos_ that blinked into existence to push back the thick blackness around her, albeit barely.

Hermione felt her vision blur and blank out, coming back spottily to view the now dimly lit room. Her _lumos_ flickered, only coming back after an intense moment of concentration that left her feeling woozy and lightheaded. She felt shaky and weak, the sensation of her magic trickling down and seemingly _out_ of her limbs an extremely disconcerting one. It was in this barely breached darkness with fatigue threatening to take her that the whispers from her horcrux were deafening.

_One last tale before bedtime,_ it spoke in a voice that sounded inexplicably like her mother's._ Come, Hermione. Which would you like?_

"Mum," she murmured, head foggy from exhaustion. "Mum?"

_This one is quite good, I think. Here, let's try this one…_

Her mother's voice was…_heavenly._ It was just as she'd recalled it. Soft, soothing, and with a patience that she, herself, had never quite seemed to muster. It had been so long since she'd heard it like this. So many years before the war, before she'd even _gone_ to Hogwarts…so many years…hearing her mother reading about _Babbitty Rabbitty_ as though it happened merely a day ago…

_Isn't that odd?_ A part of her questioned from some place far, far away in her mind. _Mum reading about 'Babbitty Rabbitty'?_

With a sudden jolt, Hermione's eyes snapped open wide. She glimpsed her fingertips millimetres away from pressing into the dried muck covered pages of her horcrux before jerking her whole arm back so violently that it felt as though the entire extremity would fly from its socket. A surge of adrenaline urged her to her feet, her _lumos_ snuffing out of existence entirely to be replaced with a swiftly hissed call of another spell that set the entire room aglow in bluebell flames. Hermione sneered at the accursed book and it was snapped harshly shut before being wrapped in its leather coverings and being banished to the very bottom of her leather satchel where its whispers would be unable to reach her ears.

A feral sneer on her face, her breath came in labored pants as she glared at her bag. Hermione wobbled as the short burst of adrenaline bled from her as quickly as it had come. "Treacherous bloody book!" She spat the curse in its general direction and glanced about until she was able to reacquire her other, newer tome, taking refuge in its pages instead. Turning the book of mind magic around in her hands, while thankful for its distinct _lack_ of a thudding, humming soul, Hermione grimaced. For what muddled insight the book had managed to bring her about her foray into the past, it was nearly just as unwelcome as the fairy tale book that was filled to the brim with lies and deceit.

_Nearly_ being the operative word.

. . . . .

Another day, another outing.

While he _did_ so enjoy the break from the demanding pressures of updating coursework and grading essays, the serious responsibilities of chaperoning so many students and their adolescent excursion into the town did tend to dampen its appeal.

_It is no matter,_ Horace reminded himself sternly. _I've a job to do for these students and, as such, some sacrifices __**must**__ be made. _

With a nod and a huff and a puffing up of his chest, he resolutely drained the rest of his goblet – which may or may not have been a bit…_strong_ for that hour of the morning – and plucked up his last piece of toast to munch on as he made his way to meet with the rest of the students and faculty gathering in the courtyard. It was as he was making his way out of the Hall that he spotted the haggard form of the better half of his favorite pair of students.

Horace brightened visibly. "Miss Callaghan!" His voice boomed, turning more than a few heads, including her terribly frizzy mess of curls and tangles. "Good to see you!"

Persephone's movements were slow, sluggish. She appeared to have to put in a great deal of effort to turn her focus towards him and, if he were honest, she looked like she'd been dragged behind a herd of rampaging centaur from one corner of the Forbidden Forest to the other before having been deposited there at the entryway to the Hall.

"You're looking better!" Slughorn chirped. "How are you feeling?"

Her eyes blinked at him, hesitating on a spot somewhere to his side as though she'd spotted something particularly interesting. Horace chanced a glance over his shoulder but saw nothing of note and when he looked back, she was staring at him with eyes darker than the deepest night.

"Good morning, Professor." Her voice may very well have made the same trip that her body looked to have had. "I've been better."

His bright smile faltered a little into something that likely appeared a great degree more forced. "A-ah." It was the first clever thing that escaped him. Her gaze was unmoving; unsettlingly unmoving. "Well!" Horace said loudly again. "Perhaps a hardy breakfast will help to remedy that!"

"That is why I'm here, sir." Her reply was simple and tired. And simply tired.

With a scoff, he motioned back behind him. "It's a bit late, Miss Callaghan. They will be clearing the food very shortly now." Her jaw moved, her mouth opening as though she was about to speak and he set a firm hand on her shoulder, turning her about face and moving to usher her back out the way she'd come. "Come! I'll treat you to something from the Hog's Head's menu! Many people fail to realize that, though a pub, they still have _quite_ a good selection of food! There is something that I wanted to discuss with you anyway regarding a missive I'd received from an old friend—"

Persephone Callaghan walked a few paces under his guidance before gingerly extracting herself from his nudging hand. "Sorry, Professor," she said, though the sentiment behind it was questionable. "Madam Aubrey does still insist on having me on bedrest. I will, _unfortunately,_ be unable to accompany you into town."

The explanation was barely past her lips when Horace huffed again, openly appalled at the idea that a _nurse_ might have more sway than a _professor_! Particularly one as well regarded as he! "Nonsense!" He barked. "You're fit as a fiddle!" He gestured a bit too widely and nudged her side, causing her to wobble. With the reflexes of a cat, Professor Slughorn reached out to steady her before she toppled and continued on. "Come, I'll escort you myself."

"But, sir, the caretaker won't—"

"—have a _thing_ to say about it, is what!"

. . . . .

Breakfast had been, Hermione had to admit, rather good. For a pub, anyway.

Professor Slughorn had allowed her a quick stop to fetch her coat and leggings. He then had gotten her past the castle's front gate, as he said he would, with surprisingly little issue and only a moderate amount of his huffing, puffing, and posturing. He'd also made good on his word to treat her to a meal. She wasn't sure if it was just the difference from the ward's portions or the fact that she was running on fumes from having to quarantine her book's power away, but the mess of eggs, sausage, and toast that she had at the pub was _amazing._ With the way Slughorn had been blinking at her enthusiastic consumption of it, she guessed she _may_ have been a little malnourished in light of her nocturnal escapades; she also came to the conclusion that she didn't actually _care_ at that point. While she definitely noticed the decline in her energy without her book at her fingertips, its absence provided her with a clearer mind and cleaner air to breathe; she would take a little bit of ravenous hunger as an additional penance.

After Hermione had taken her fill of her free meal, the professor had insisted on walking about the town to stretch their legs and to also speak with her about some inane project he wanted her to work on. She vaguely recalled him saying something about it when she was fading in and out of consciousness in the hospital ward, but apparently there was some mass call to action for potions and draughts and salves to assist with the aftermath of the overspill of the Muggle war. She allowed herself a moment to boggle at the realization that she was, even mildly, bearing witness to a war that she'd only ever read about in texts and briefly wondered what the war that she'd escaped from would one day look like in future tomes. Professor Slughorn's schmoozing and explanations were intrusive, however, and she was only allowed that short time to ponder before they found themselves back again at the pub for a midday meal.

The professor's cheeks and nose were significantly redder since their breakfast and he tilted slightly more to one side than before. "It's all…_quite_ trag—_hic—_ic, Miss Callaghan! There's only so mu—_erp_—ch that magic can do to protect against the Muggle explosions, you know! An explosion is still an explosion!" He waved his hands and made a soft _pskow_ sound to impress upon her the gravity of his cause.

Hermione looked at the inebriated wizard from beneath half-lidded eyes and was doing her best to stave off the fatigue that was catching up to her from their walk. "I understand, sir," she said patronizingly then put on her best saddened expression. "Especially after—well, Aunt Ruthie has been kind, sir, but—I am _very_ familiar with the loss you speak of—"

As if a light dawned on him, Slughorn's eyebrows shot up high on his forehead and his face contorted into a mortified visage. "_Oh_, Miss Callaghan, I _am_ so sorry—of course you know! Poor child, I apologize—"

"No, sir, truly, it's fine—"

"No, no, no! It's_ss_ anything _but_ fine! And that's why! You see? That's why—"

"Professor, please—"

"—I told Tom exactly the same thing!"

Hermione had opened her mouth once more to try to shush the wizard who was swiftly getting on her nerves when he made mention of Tom. The memory of them, standing in the not-so-abandoned classroom together in some sort of mutually agreed upon affair came instantly to mind. "Tom?"

Professor Slughorn nodded then went right into shaking his head. "Such a shame—I'd told him that we needed to do it for this reason precisely! We needed to do it to save innocent witches and wizards—_and Muggles like your parents_—" He leaned in conspiratorially as though he were to whisper but neglected to actually change the volume of his voice. "—from this terrible aftermath of war! If we can help in these dark times then, well, _by Jove!_ We _must!_"

Hermione frowned, glanced around her but did move in closer as well. She did _not_ neglect to lower her voice, however. "And Tom…_agreed_ to assist you?"

Slughorn sat back and upright in his seat suddenly, as if surprised. "Why of course he did, Miss Callaghan! That was the _deciding_ factor to his decision to help us on this mission!" A so obviously drunken grin quirked his mouth to one side. "If you'll pardon me for being so bold, Miss Callaghan, but that _is_ what _'partners'_ do for each other."

A blush flooded into Hermione's cheeks and neck._** "Professor!"**_ She hissed snappily before she could stop herself. "Are you truly to be encouraging this sort of understanding between your students?"

Far too deep into his cups to be at all bothered by her insubordinate tone, Horace let out a hearty laugh and slapped the tabletop. "_Miss Callaghan,_" he chided, "I am _much_ more observant than you credit me for!" He watched her shrink lower into her seat, shoulders coming up in a shrug that was attempting to help her vanish from sight. "It was evident from the first day in class that the pair of you were fated to be!"

Hermione scowled at that but the intense press of her classroom memories made stars burst on the backs of her eyelids. The vision of them together once more and the vivid memory of the warmth of Tom's arms around her made her stomach flop and her heart beat just that much faster. 'Fate' was a tricky thing that fortune tellers and car salesmen told the naïve and gullible about and Hermione loathed the idea, however…she would be a fool if she were to completely disregard the visions—the memories—altogether.

Setting her mouth in a grim line, Hermione made a decision as her meddling and boozed up professor looked on. If nothing else…she would at least _attempt_ to speak to him about what she has seen. "Is Tom working on this for you again, today, sir?" When she looked back up to Professor Slughorn, his grin was so stupidly large that she wanted to just slap it clean off of his face.

"_Oh,_ yes, Miss Callaghan. He should still be in the labs. I am due to meet him a bit later this afternoon if you—" He cleared his throat. "—wish to head back to the castle a bit early."

Hermione's blink was so slow…so incredulous. _No wonder none of the faculty ever notices students being injured or killed,_ she thought, _they're far too busy getting pissed and matchmaking…_ A tightly controlled smile spread across her face. "Brilliant, Professor. Thank you."

Professor Slughorn grinned cheekily and toasted her with his half empty mug of something quite strong and fragrant.

. . . . .

From the corner of the pub, a mug of butterbeer was slammed firmly down onto the old splintered table. The tall, lean boy wore a scowl so severe that it seemed he was working to burn holes into the back of a very, very frizzy haired witch.

Another pair of boys joined him shortly before the witch began to gather herself and her things to leave the pub.

As soon as the boy closest to his left was seated, Avery snarled lowly through his teeth. "I thought Abraxas said she wasn't allowed here."

Tarquin Nott looked up, the faint smile that'd been on his face from his joking with Rosier dissipating immediately. He followed Avery's intense glare to witness the very real, very _near_ form of Persephone Callaghan politely excusing herself from their Head of House's company. He cursed every single thing under the moon and sun in those few seconds.

"Don't let it ruin the outing, mate," Nott said in as bolstering a fashion as he could, hoping to stave off some sort of explosion. To his surprise, Avery just stewed for a moment, shook his head, and took a sip from his mug. Any hopes he had that this _wouldn't_ lead to trouble, however, were dashed the moment Avery spoke.

"Don't worry," he said, "this is actually excellent."

Tarquin exchanged looks with Rosier and he felt a seed of dread take root in the pit of his stomach. "Excellent?"

Avery nodded, took another sip, and watched Persephone exit the pub. He smiled. "We're doing it tonight."

Nott blanched. "T-_tonight?"_

Grinning now, Avery motioned to Rosier. "Hurry. Get Rophelius and Mulciber and get her to the spot." He then turned to Nott. "Do me a favour and go find Abraxas? Meet us on the hill."

And with that, Avery and Rosier were already moving, leaving Tarquin still sitting at their table, mouth agape. "Wuh…" His mouth flapped and he spoke at the now otherwise empty table. "Wuh—oh, bloody buggering _**HELL**_."

. . . . .

The number of shops that Abraxas frequented were decidedly few and it was hardly a challenge to find that he'd holed himself away in one of the town's bookshops. Tarquin found him lost in thought, wandering the foreign culture and studies section of the store and wasted no time in filling him in about the local_ Persephone spotting_ and Avery's nonsense.

While he _knew_ that the plan of Avery's was awful and insane, there was something immensely satisfying about hearing that he was _not_ the only one that thought so.

"Are you taking the piss? How does he even plan to get away with that when a _PROFESSOR _was escorting her? I swear, it's worse and worse each time."

Tarquin agreed, "It's an idiotic plan. And Avery is going to get US all killed for it." He shook his head and moved along his side of the bookshelves, tugging a tome from the shelf and casually murmuring at the gap it left and towards Abraxas on the other side. "Have you seen the way that Tom's been brooding since start of term? If she turns up dead—"

"We'll all be close behind." Abraxas breathed.

"Now that's the bleedin' truth if I ever did see it." Another shifting of books, some nonchalant browsing, and a few steps further down the aisle and Tarquin whispered, "I tell you what, mate, you'd best act now or your little crush, as well as the _rest_ of us, will be miraculously missing by the end of the night." Abraxas seemed offended that he was expected to come up with a way to get them all out of it and Nott scoffed. "Hey, Avery was _your_ recommendation, therefore he is _your_ responsibility."

Abraxas conceded the point. "We have to tell Tom."

And then he spoke insanity.

Juggling the book he'd nearly dropped in his shock and waiting a few tense seconds to see if the shop keep was due to show or not, Nott proceeded to immediately freak out. "Sorry, did you suddenly lose absolutely _**all**_ of your senses when I wasn't looking? You _**WANT**_ to fetch Tom so he can—_what?_ Witness this barmy-as-shite plan and then string us up like garland? That's utterly mad and you know it!" He hissed and attempted to speak some sense into the very universe in those moments. "What we _need_ to do is just get to Avery, settle him down a bit and—"

"If Avery, Rosier, Lestrange, _and_ Mulciber are all on board with this 'barmy-as-shite' plan, just how much settling down d'you think will get done, mate?"

Nott pursed his lips. He'd given up all pretenses of perusing shop wares at this point and was simply staring through the gap in the shelved books into the grey eyes of a very serious looking Abraxas Malfoy. "Your girl can fight. I mean, to date, she's discarded Avery like a toy and outmatched the lot of us in _D.A.D.A._ all through second term last year. If you, me, and her oppose—"

"If _you_ recall, she has just gotten out of hospital. Did you even _see_ her yesterday morning? She's hardly in any sort of condition to duel. And…besides…" Abraxas hesitated, gaze going a bit distant as he chewed on the inside of his cheek. "We haven't actually parted on the best of terms. I'm not entirely sure that Persephone, if she _were_ able to fight, would be very 'receptive' to not killing us herself."

The predicament staring him in the face struck him funny all of a sudden and Tarquin snorted out a laugh full of sass and irony. "Brilliant. So…we either get gutted by Tom while trying to save her or we get gutted by your girl while trying to save her. Bloody _brilliant._"

Abraxas' mouth set into a thin line, the corner of it twitching when Nott referred to Persephone as _his_ girl again; it didn't go unnoticed.

Tarquin snorted again. "_Shite._ That's a buggered choice if ever there was one."

"Seems that's _all_ our choices are these days…"

Nott nodded solemnly and the pair of them stood in silence among the shelves, each taking in their own respective deep breaths of resignation for the futures they'd signed up for.

It was Tarquin who broke the silence first. "Well…you'd better run, then, Malfoy." At the questioning look sent to him from the other aisle, he shrugged and sighed. "Better go get Tom. We might at least be able to plead for our lives with that one. If not…" There was a brief but poignant quiet that hung in the air until Nott sighed once again. "At least I know the sort of death I can expect. I'll try and—well, I'll try and figure out _something_ to keep that fool friend of yours from succeeding with his fool plan."

Abraxas set his jaw, met Tarquin's eyes, and gave him a firm nod before setting a book back on the shelf and moving swiftly from the shop.

Tarquin Nott allowed himself a meditative moment, just him, the smell of old parchment, leather, and ink before he, too, exited the bookshop in haste.

. . . . .

It was amazing how quickly one's feet could propel them when one's life was on the line.

Tarquin Nott had streaked out of the bookshop alternating between walking and running wherever he could get away with it to draw as little attention to himself as possible. He'd spent as little time with Abraxas as he could and he was powering through side alleyways and less traveled parts of the town to try and cut the others off before they got very far.

_Left turn._

The last he'd seen Persephone she'd already been en route to the castle gates.

_Right turn._

It was fortuitous, Nott mused, that the others still had to be fetched before they could even attempt to abduct her.

_Another right down this path._

Contrarily, at the rate she was hobbling and shuffling through the streets, they'll have done laps around town by the time she crosses the pickup point.

_Left past this shop._

If he could just get there—

_Through this gate. _

-before the others—

_To the right of the path._

-he could warn her—

"_**AH!"**_

The feminine yelp and a sudden bodily collision snapped Tarquin from his thoughts; mostly the collision, though. He groaned, finding himself sprawled over a petite woman that he'd not expected to be on the side path leading up to the larger walkway towards the castle gate.

"_Get __**OFF**__ me!"_ The voice screeched.

Nott's eyes went wide at its familiarity and he was able to ignore the decidedly painful slaps she was dispensing to his shoulder and side as an incentive for him to move. "Callaghan!"

She stopped her slapping, taking a moment to fix him with a similar wide eyed look of confusion and surprise. Then her brow furrowed into something stern and she reared back and smacked him more deliberately until he fell off to one side. "I said _**OFF!**_ Merlin, Nott, what were you doing tearing through the streets like—_AH!_"

Before she was even finished speaking, Nott was hauling her up onto her feet and talking over her. "No time," he said. "You need to _**go**__._ Things are about to go tits up here and you need to—"

"_Petrificus totalus!"_

Nott watched in horror as the girl in his arms went suddenly stiff and the only thing keeping her from slamming painfully back into the cobblestones was the fact that he'd still had her in hand.

The lowly hissed spell had come from a bit farther down the way and was followed by an exasperated voice.

"_Idiot! What if someone had seen!"_

"_Well, nobody did! Sod off!"_

"_YOU sod off!"_

The pair of voices and their owners quickly sidled up to Tarquin Nott with growing grins on their faces.

Mulciber patted him on the back. "Good job, Nott!"

Rophelius Lestrange snorted, looking up and down the nearby paths to make sure there wasn't anyone close enough to see anything. Satisfied that the coast was clear, he nodded in the direction of a long stretch of snow covered field leading away from Hogsmeade towards a thicket of frozen trees and a gently sloping hillside. "Save it for later. Let's get her to the hilltop and get this done with. It's cold out here."

Mulciber chuckled but nodded and the two of them, without even asking for his permission, extracted the petrified Persephone Callaghan from Nott's grip and walked with her towards the trees as though nothing was amiss in the slightest.

Tarquin, jaw dropped and gaping in a shocked, stunned sort of silence in the face of this terrible comedy of errors watched his compatriots get smaller and smaller as they moved further into the distance. When the ability for speech returned to him, he embraced it with a sternly muttered _**"SHITE"**_ before snatching up Persephone's discarded wand and following after them as calmly as possible while trying to formulate a _'Plan B.'_

. . . . .

The lab was eerily quiet as he worked, much like it had been the other night when he'd lost many hours to a block of time he could not recall.

Thinking of those lost moments only brought to him the persistent warm scent of sun and parchment, the memory of feeling calm…_complete_. As his hands sliced, diced, measured, and stirred, his mind was able to reconstruct the pleasant sensation of a petite body nestled neatly against his, cuddled in his arms, her head tucked perfectly beneath his chin. It tried so very hard to place a face to this memory of touch but the harder it tried, the more it simply left his chest aching, yearning for the answer. Try as he might to ignore the desire to dredge up more details of this happening, Tom found himself methodically retracing the steps he'd taken prior to losing time.

He took stock of his cauldrons all boiling.

He extracted all of his tomes from his bags.

He scanned all the covers—and he remembered a parchment tucked into one of them.

With more haste than he would admit to, Tom rummaged through his books until he found the one that'd held the old sooty page that he'd first discovered in the library the other morning. He took a careful glance around the room before eying the page critically, rubbing the tips of his fingers of one hand together in preparation for whatever strangeness was tied to this paper. Having made up his mind, Tom reached for the page and pressed skin to parchment.

Nothing happened.

Tom's brows furrowed in annoyance. As if double checking himself, he picked it out from its spot in the book and spread it out onto the table before him. His eyes narrowed as he looked at the names once more, even going so far as to speak one of them aloud. _**"Callum Thomas."**_ When another moment passed and nothing happened, Tom felt the tension in his shoulders release and he shook his head.

_Well,_ he thought, _what __**was **__I expecting?_

The very faint hint of rosemary hit his senses and, as though that lull in his attention was all it was waiting for, another vision took him.

This one was _quite_ different than all the others he'd experienced before. It was not gradual, nor delicate, but it held something akin to the feeling of being harshly trampled by a herd of beasts. The last thing that Tom recalled was the edge of a lab table cutting harshly into the meat of his palms as his full weight was braced onto each arm and then the world around him swam.

He blinked—he must have—because when he reopened his eyes, he was staring down at a stack of very official looking transcripts, a quill in one hand, and he had the vague understanding that he was sitting.

. . .

"Are you even listening to me?"

. . .

_A woman's voice, familiar, annoyed, sounded from across the table._

_Tom felt his mouth move, though he found he had no control over it or what came out of it. _

. . .

"Of course I am, love."

"Of _course _you are."

. . .

_This woman was obviously skeptical. _

. . .

"So what did I just say?"

"You were indignantly huffing about me not listening to you while reading me, for the third time, your list of proposed names."

. . .

_It was, Tom mused to himself, like watching oneself through glass, though he knew precisely what he was about to say before he said it. He felt every budding emotion, every shift and change of thought, he knew exactly what he was about to do. It was like a dream; it was like…a memory._

_He watched himself interacting with this woman…this woman who resembled the older version of Persephone that he had glimpsed in her mind._

_The woman's name rang out like a siren in his head: __**Hermione Granger.**_

. . .

Hermione huffed again. "You know, when we married, a part of me was hoping that you would grow out of being an arse, Tom. I'll have to say, I am sorely disappointed."

"And therein lies the problem of marrying someone with the grandiose hopes of change and redemption." He finally looked up from his paperwork with a smirk. "Besides, I couldn't very well let you hold the mantle of insufferability all by yourself. We pledged ourselves as partners, remember? Equal in all things."

She snorted and came around his desk to hit him with her folded list of names. "_Arse_."

Nudging his other parchments aside, he darted a hand out to pluck the list from her hand and tugged her onto his lap. Tom comfortably nestled his cheek onto her swollen bosom and had another look over the names, his face scrunching and a sour expression finding its way to the surface. "I should like to know what exactly those Muggle nurses have you on that lends itself towards these hideous combinations of syllables."

Hermione took the page back and smoothed it out on his desk while draping one of her arms around his neck and shoulder. "What's wrong with them? These are all good, **dignified** names."

"Of course you are right, Hermione." Tom traced his finger down the column of neatly looping script. "Graham Orpheus. Callum Thomas. Frederick Balthazar? Excellent names…just not together." The exasperated sigh from his wife ruffled his hair, the heat of her agitated stare drilling into him from above. The hand not helping to balance her on his lap came up to rest on her hugely rounded belly and he whispered to it, "I look forward to your arrival and the restoration of your mother's faculties."

Hermione sniffed and smacked his hand from her stomach. She wobbled and pushed off of his lap back onto her feet, promptly jutting a hip and folding her arms over said tummy as best she could. "There will **be** no arrival until we decide on a name. And, for your information, I am a fan of Callum."

"You intend to just cross your knees and keep him in? Forgive me, Hermione, but for as much as the school's curriculum was lacking, I do tend to think I'm a hair cleverer than that as to the workings of childbirth." The smallest grin tugged at the corners of his mouth as Tom watched his swollen, waddling witch with a fondness that warmed the room. He reclined in his seat and finally agreed, "But I will give you that it _is_ a rather good name."

A mischievous glint appeared in Hermione's eyes and her own smirk crept onto her face. "Callum Thomas," she said. "I thought you might like that one best."

"Oh?" He tilted his head slightly to one side, his grin stretching wider by the second. "And why, pray tell, is that?"

Hermione's wide, ridiculous smile, now stretched from ear to ear, was positively infectious. "It lends itself very well to anagrams, you see." She held up a lightly fisted hand and ticked off her first example on her thumb. "A mismatched rod lull." She added her index finger to the count. "Cartloads milled hum." And another finger still. "A calmed humid stroll."

Tom outright guffawed at her cheekiness in referencing the perhaps not-so-subtle notes left upon his arithmancy papers in awkward attempts at courtship. "You little—"

Whatever he had been about to say was interrupted by a loud explosion coming from the direction of the door to his office. Tom had barely seconds to compose himself and draw his wand past the harsh ringing in his ears, the plume of smoke filling the room, and the falling debris from his door being blown to bits.

"Good evenin', Minister," a croaky voice came from within the smoke.

Tom coughed and cracked open an eye, any fuzziness that'd befallen him due to the impromptu destruction fled immediately at the sight of his witch now being held at wand point by a second unnamed man. Instantly, he lifted his wand, a curse on his lips, but the pained yelp from Hermione as her captor jabbed the wood more firmly into her neck and twisted her wand arm violently made him freeze.

"**Unhand. My. Wife."** Tom's words were suddenly devoid of all humor and, though he did not send any spells in their direction, his aim did not waver.

"Ah." The man that had spoken before shrugged and stepped further into the office next to his companion. "M'afraid that's not in the cards today, sir. If y'will recall, the Dark Lord had sent ya a missive earlier on demandin' yer compliance with his request. An', upon, well, **not** complyin', there were t'be consequences."

This speaker shrugged again and another four men entered. Tom recognized their uniforms easily by their dark woolen cloaks held shut by a single elaborate broach sporting a filigreed 'G' and his look darkened.

"M'here to deliver on those consequences, sir… seein' as how you and the Missus failed to—heh, y'know—_**comply**_."

Hermione moved suddenly in the one man's grasp, coming forward to sink her teeth into his wand hand firmly enough to draw blood. In shock and pain, he howled and loosened his grip enough for her to twist her wand hand from his grasp and move her other to wrench his fingers violently back off of his wand. She slipped free of his hold and got her weapon up, a hex on her tongue when the speaker man's closed fist came flying into the side of her face. Hermione staggered from the blow but was quickly rebalanced by two sets of hands digging into each of her arms. One of these new men snatched her wand completely from her and tossed it away, the other pressed their own sharply against her swollen stomach. Her breath hitched and her form went completely rigid.

The sounds that came from Tom were absolutely inhuman and he got a hex off just before a spell to his gut bent him in half and he, too, was then braced on his feet by the remainder of the men.

The Speaker laughed at the one compatriot that was still trying to recover from Hermione's attack. "Y'alright, Chancey? Think ya can hold her this time 'round? Fook's sake…"

Chancey did finally get back on his feet, only to promptly stomp over to Hermione and backhand her with the very hand she bit.

The resounding snarl from Tom was enough to cause the Speaker to bark at them all, "Alrigh', alrigh'! Enough with that! Can we jus' do this in an orderly fashion? Merlin's beard…savages, all of ya." He turned a pleasant look back onto a murderous Tom Riddle. "Pardon their brutish behaviour, Minister—" He looked to Hermione. "—ma'am. Some of the boys, well, they jus' don't quite understand how ter behave amongst the upper class."

. . .

_Tom continued to watch, to listen, to this ignorant creature go on and on about his master this and his master that. Something about a stone, their punishment was to be death for ignoring his master's demands—whatever the bloody hell he was on about, Tom found it increasingly difficult to focus past the bubbling, burning, roiling fury in his veins. _

_The men had their hands on Hermione, the one pressed his wand into her stomach, another had clamped his hand around her throat in an obvious, overt threat that if she didn't cease her hissing and spitting that she would be punished; she didn't._

_A fresh surge of blinding rage washed through him when her words gained her another slap and the already budding bruises on the side of her face seemed all the angrier in response. The men didn't stop their rough handling of her there, however, and pathetic pleas were leaving him before he knew how to stop them._

. . .

"Stop! Here! Your bloody stone is **HERE!**" Tom jerked free of the cloaked men's grip to wrench smoothed rock pendant free from his neck.

"Tom, no—_mmf!_"

He murmured a soft pair of words and held the thing out at them. The henchmen were braced to attack but when the pendant's otherwise unremarkable visage melted away to something brilliant and glittering and red, The Speaker's arm raised sharply in a command to stop. Tom's eyes were wide, flicking between his wife and the man in charge when he growled, "Take it and LEAVE!"

The Speaker eyed the proffered necklace carefully, looking around at his men with far too cool of a gaze.

"Take the damned thing and make good on your word!"

. . .

_From behind the windows of his own eyes, Tom hissed and cursed at his own self._

"_FOOL!"_

_His consciousness moved savagely behind his glass prison, hands coming to press angrily against the surface._

"_**KILL THEM!"**_

. . .

The Speaker padded carefully towards Tom's outstretched hand and met his eyes, looking for something very particular before cautiously taking the pendant from his grasp. Curiously, he turned the stone around once, twice, three times and then jarringly snapped the pronged setting from one of its ends. The man discarded the chain and fittings, rolling the ruby red stone in hand once more and finally allowed a too amused laugh to bubble forth.

"Ah, there it is. It does look _much_ shinier in person, doesn't it Bill?" He held it out to one side where one of the men anchoring Hermione in place spared him a grin.

"_Aye, that it does. Prettier than a ruby, shinier 'n a diamond!"_

The Speaker nodded, pulling it back in. "Ah'll say, Minister…we've been lookin' for this a might several places. If we'd'a known ya was keepin' it so close to home earlier, well, that might'a saved Lord Grindelwald a great deal of stress…"

"My _**wife**_," Tom snarled, standing freely between the men that'd held him moments ago but truly no better off. "Return her to me, _NOW_!"

. . .

_Tom was veritably champing at the bit. _

_His heart hammered in his ears._

_A sick churning started in his stomach._

_His palms slammed against his invisible cage as he roared. _

_He watched this pathetic, powerless, __**clueless**__ image of himself, scrubbed clean and polished by the idiotic ideals of this society he led._

_He watched and he knew how this all would end._

_Any idiot should have known how this would end._

_He knew._

_**He remembered.**_

. . .

"Oh, right, right. Sorry 'bout that, Minister. Bill, Rupert, if you would?"

Tom felt the slightest sense of relief as Hermione was released and nudged harshly in his direction. Though she bit her tongue this time, the look upon her face was positively venomous and not cowed in the least.

"OH! One thing though, sir. One more thing that the Master requested from this little outing."

. . .

_He couldn't look away._

_He knew…_

_He knew, he knew, he knew…_

_He watched her take those scant few steps towards him._

. . .

"Because of all the trouble you've caused 'im, he requested the memory of _this_."

. . .

_Tom felt himself screaming, in his mind and this body of his from some time and some place he wasn't sure he could point out on a map._

_He watched her stumble forward._

_He remembered the way her eyes grew wide when the spell hit her square in the gut._

_He remembered the way her skin opened and the blood came._

_He remembered the dark magic that snuffed out the life from those eyes…snuffed out the light from his life._

_He remembered and he saw it all over again._

. . .

"_**HERMIONE!"**_

She was in his arms.

They both crashed to the floor and, for the first time in a long, long time, Tom had _no_ earthly idea what to do.

Her throat was opened, skin peeled away, flapping in a sick twitching of muscle and tendon along with her mouth and he frantically pressed a hand to it as if to seal it and dismiss the blood rapidly leaking from between his fingers. He cradled her to him, his other hand wavering between supporting her head to her back to—_Merlin and Morgana_—to anywhere he could try to touch her that wouldn't cause her more pain. Her own hands scrabbled at her belly and she wheezed and gurgled sounds at him, trying to speak and maybe, just maybe, he could have pushed into her mind to listen but for all his training and all his study, he couldn't focus beyond the way the magic ate at her flesh, withering and killing her more thoroughly than anything he'd seen or heard of before. Her eyes were wet, glassy and unfocused and he saw the struggle in them, watched them roll in their sockets, searching for him with rapidly deteriorating senses.

Until they stopped.

And the rest of her body stopped along with them.

It didn't happen like in the novels. There were no tearful goodbyes, no heart wrenching words on her deathbed. One moment she was alive and the next…his only good thing in the world was _gone._

Tom swallowed, his shell shocked stare sweeping down the length of her to latch onto the spot where her hands folded over her stomach, where more than blood and guts had slipped through her fingers. He trembled as he moved to rest a palm over the mess there, bile rising quickly to touch the back of his tongue.

_His only good things…_

A distant part of him knew that he was crying, tears streaming from his eyes as though he was, once again, that tiny boy in that crummy orphanage in that piss-poor part of town where everyone hated or feared him. Where his future was bleak and uncertain. Where no one wanted him or had cared who or what he would become. His fingers twitched around the simple metal band that marked their union and Tom felt the hot wash of fear and sorrow and fury pressing into every inch of his body, pushing against every solitary nerve ending he possessed.

The haze of his loss and confusion was so dense that he nearly missed the laughter from the men around him.

"Thanks for that, Minister. The Dark Lord will covet this one for years to come."

Tom's bloodshot, reddened eyes slid up from Hermione's still cooling corpse, taking in, in those brief few moments, everything about the man who had taken her—taken _them_—from him. From his muddied brown boots, to his ill fitted corduroy trousers, all the way up to his cheaply tailored wool coat and cloak hanging back off his shoulders. Tom stared up the length of the man's wand to his grinning face and thought of the good woman gone and the bad men still standing before him.

He thought of his own narrowly skimmed path that the bloodied, limp hand he still held had pulled him from those years ago.

He thought of deeply immoral…deeply horrifying…deeply _unforgivable_ things that he would subject these bad men to if he hadn't, in fact, been one of the good ones.

_Hermione and Callum's blood ran thickly through his fingers._

Perhaps it was that that caused Tom to realize that he had never _**been**_ one of the good ones no matter how hard he'd tried…

Tom turned back to look down at his wife, her eyes blank but fixed towards his face. With one hand, he reached to sweep a thumb over her flayed cheek, murmuring an apology as the portraits and hangings in his office shook and began to tremble off their hooks.

His words trickled off, dying out into lowly breathed hisses of something inhuman.

In his mind, Tom continued to apologize as The Speaker's rotten toothed mouth stretched from that face splitting grin into a wretched scream as he, his foul clothing, his compatriots, and the room were all engulfed in blue-white flames.

The smell of burning flesh was quick to flood the senses.

Tom stood, cradling his Hermione to his chest, her head tucked beneath his chin, his lips moving against her blood matted curls in a voice too soft to hear over the crackling and screaming. The fire parted for him as he crossed the room, past the frantic, flailing men who were dying.

_Dead far too quickly. I should have made it longer._

He reached into the curio cabinet that held her old pendant, the weight of the sand in the hourglass felt like lead in his grip.

. . .

_**I can't do this without you.**_

. . .

He clenched his eyes shut and sobbed into her hair.

. . .

_**There's one thing in this world that I care more about than myself, Hermione.**_

. . .

She'd desired a good man and a good life and he'd pressed himself into the mold, he'd worn the mantle, the mask; for her.

. . .

_**He's a monster. He's always been a monster…**_

. . .

It was always for her.

. . .

_**Return her to me. NOW.**_

. . .

Now all the good things had fled, been ripped from him to leave only the gaping, wretched, rotten darkness in its wake.

. . .

_**Of course I want you! You KNOW I do!**_

. . .

Perhaps this was what it took instead.

. . .

_**Time doesn't work like that! It could be dangerous!**_

. . .

He apologized and turned the glass.

. . .

_**I promise you . . . **_

. . .

_For her._

. . .

_**. . . I would do anything to keep you safe.**_

. . .

"_I love you, Hermione."_

. . . . .

A ragged, wretched, _pitiful_ cry wrenched itself free from Tom's throat as he tore free from the memory.

The cauldron fires around him were burning bright and high, several of the concoctions bubbling angrily and threatening to boil over at any second. His eyes were huge and unfocused, flitting around to every bold splotch of color in the near vicinity with no ability to focus past the watery fall of tears. He was hyperventilating and every inch of his body ached with something beyond any pain he'd ever endured to that point and he _**loathed**_ it. It struck him deeper than his bones, ringing something buried so deeply within him that it made him sick beyond his ability to bear.

Tom heaved up what little sustenance he'd taken in that day onto the floor of the lab until he'd emptied his entire stomach and then some. Tears continued to sting at the corners of his eyes and his nose ran from the exertion of trying to expel this terrible feeling that continued to pummel him. Though his experience with the emotion was decidedly limited, Tom wasn't foolish enough to pretend it was anything other than what it was.

He was not, however, above his own frantic reminder to himself that _'love is a __**WEAKNESS**__.'_

Swiping the tears and snot from his face with the back of an arm, Tom moved shakily from his own pile of sick. His head was quickly working on wrapping itself around what he'd just seen and trying to logic it all away and shove it in a box that he could seal or dispose of in the recesses of his mind. His heart, cold and dark as it was, was having none of it.

"_Hermione,"_ Tom mumbled, stumbling around the potions lab, still trying to get his bearings. He shook his head harshly as if to forcefully eject the name.

Tom only seemed to succeed in rattling a different memory of her—of _them_—free and it flashed across the backs of his lids.

He growled and dug his palms hard into his temples on either side of his head. _**"NO!"**_ He snarled to no one in particular and the flames nearby flared even higher, various brews hitting the tabletops with violent hisses.

"She. Is. A. **Weakness.**" Tom grit the words out stubbornly and, even in the face of additional more pleasant memories, he willed himself to recall the pitiful, desperate, _powerless_ man that allowed his witch to be struck down.

Murmurs started in his mind. Dissenting voices that sounded far too much like his own argued one point or the next and the cacophony of sound quickly became nauseating.

One side raged and fought for the idea and visions of these intensely powerful feelings and grandiose seats of prestige and power that a path with her in his life could—_or __**had**__—_apparently lead.

_You had it all,_ they said enticingly.

The other battled against the notion, citing the scene he'd just witnessed as his most pathetic, most intensely horrific failure; a waste of everything he strived to accomplish all because of an ill-gotten relationship with a pretty witch at a boarding school.

_And you burned it all away, because__** why?**_ The other voices were not so bolstering.

"_For her." _The words slipped out and it just made Tom feel sicker hearing them aloud. His head was sure to turn inside out at any moment; blood trickled freely from one of his nostrils.

He wouldn't—_he __**wouldn't**__—_be so stupid as to sacrifice his goals a second time. If he was to see this, to take these scenes as a prophecy bubbling near the surface, just _waiting_ to come true, he would _**not**_ be so foolish as to toss his work, his life, his _everything_ aside; not for her, not for _**anyone.**_ The more he latched onto this idea, the quieter the voices became. The urgings pushing him towards the girl, the _woman_, quietened though the deeply seated ache in his chest remained.

Tom did well for himself by ignoring it with _great_ fervor.

It must have taken several minutes before his heartrate finally slowed, finally steadied. The voices in his mind were forcibly hushed and he stoked logic instead in encouragement of bringing him further from the grips of this anticipatory dread building within him the more solidly he latched onto the decision to discard Persephone Callaghan…Hermione Granger—

Tom's heart thudded loudly against his ribcage.

_Hermione Riddle?_

The vision of Hermione's flayed body splayed across his legs, the mostly formed corpse of their unborn child split and spread through both of their blood soaked hands flashed in his memory like a sock to the gut.

A horrific agony and rage filled him.

He shook his head, stumbled, and dry heaved until he was vomiting stomach acid and spit.

_Love is a weakness._

His current predicament was a textbook example of the repercussions of letting it in.

_Love is a weakness._

He would _**not**_ allow himself to be put in such a position again.

_Love is a __**weakness.**_

And besides, that _insufferable_ woman cannot even die. Her horcrux will see to _that._

A soft feminine chuckle and a single, reverberating question rang out in his mind barely before he was done with that thought.

_**WHAT horcrux, dear?**_

Tom's brow furrowed, about to freely wonder what kind of ludicrous query that was when a string of images, ones he ventured were _not_ his own, lit up the dark brooding space within his mind and tagged every single alarm bell that existed inside of him.

_Hermione, scraped, bruised, and being carted off after he'd injured her with his curse during their first DADA classes._

_Hermione, unconscious with healing stripes of slashes and cuts, laying upon a cot in the hospital wing after the basilisk attacks._

_Hermione, passed out and splayed upon the grass of the Forbidden Forest, her skin torn open and ragged from catching one too many bramble bushes and other things inside of its boundaries. _

Tom jerkily shook off the visions, a desperate need to test a sudden theory having become very, _very_ important all at once. His breath kept trying to hitch in his chest and with every bit of concentration he had, Tom forced himself into an eerie state of calm. Wobbly and unsettled from the array of visions he'd witnessed, he made his way back to his main prep station and reached a shaky hand towards his potions knife.

_Hermione, skin sliced and open in far too many places to count as he sobbed into her blood drenched hair._

In a swift move, Tom sliced the knife across his palm, carving a tear in his flesh that was laughable in comparison to that which he could not seem to scrub from his memory.

As the blood pooled from the wound, Tom Riddle did not feel the lingering kiss of the blade. Nor did he feel the echoes of pain. Instead, as his skin began to knit and heal and the magic from his horcruxes fueled the repair to his physical body, Tom Riddle felt many things for the witch he'd stubbornly tried _not _to love. Perhaps the most prominent of these that had surfaced as he stared at the now barely there scar beneath still wet streaks of blood, was _**fear**_.

"_**TOM!"**_

Tom's head snapped towards the doorway where a red faced, panting Abraxas stood heavily propped against the frame.

Tom's fear turned into dread.

"My Lord—forgive me—" Abraxas wheezed, the long, hasty run back to the castle trying even for an athlete such as he.

"**OUT** with it!" Tom's voice was sterner and steadier than he felt. He could barely hear over the sound of his pulse.

Taking in desperate gulps of air, Abraxas moved further into the room to lean heavily on the nearest lab table. "To—Tom! It's Avery! He's try—" He breathed."—trying to kill Persephone!"

And that dread turned into _wrath_**.**

_**No one**__ stole from him. Not his future, not his choice, and __**certainly**__ not her._

The distance between the two was closed in a heartbeat.

Tom's now healed hand wadded into Abraxas' shirt and the boy was hefted onto the tip of his toes with an animalistic, physical ferocity that Abraxas had never known existed in his Lord. The bloodthirsty and crazed look to him made Abraxas flinch and cower under his intensity.

Tom leaned forward, the presence of his magic thick and suffocating.

Any doubts as to whether or not Tom Riddle should be feared were violently expelled from Abraxas' thoughts while trembling beneath that gaze of incited fury. A fiery scarlet bled into the whites of his eyes and his voice hissed past menacingly bared teeth, even his words were edged and full of venom.

"_**Where**_ is my witch, Abraxas?"


	30. Chapter 29 - Blood (Book II)

**A/N:** Remember those warnings. This one is messy.

* * *

**29 – Blood**

November 1943

_Abraxas was right._

Nott eyed Persephone, now freed from his cohort's pathetic and lackluster petrification spell, struggling and wrestling with the enchanted rope that Lestrange had conjured to ensnare her instead. She had worked some of the bindings loose around her torso and was wiggling and wriggling with the rest still around her wrists but neither Lestrange nor Mulciber appeared to feel any urgent need to address this. He couldn't really blame them, however, seeing how she looked like utter shite. If she'd expended much energy at all on breaking through his Housemate's piddly spell, Tarquin couldn't imagine that she had much, if any, left, judging by the unattractive shadow to "normal" girlish complexion the girl had in her face.

_Abraxas was right…Persephone was in no condition to be dueling or dealing with these idiots._

He followed a bit behind them all as they made their way to a secluded hilltop a bit of a ways from the town. Nott had tucked his wand into a pocket and allowed his eyes to wander across the landscape as he twirled Persephone's anxiously between his fingers. Secretly, he was hoping for some spectacular and miraculous timing of an arrival of Tom and Abraxas. Practically, he was attempting to come up with a _"Plan C."_

"You're going the wrong way," Nott said coolly. "The meeting place is over there."

Mulciber snorted. "It is _not._ Are you daft?"

"I'm not daft, _you're_ daft. Clearly." Nott scoffed. "It's over _there_."

"Shut up, the both of you," Rophelius snapped and turned a sidelong look at Tarquin. "We're headed the right way. If you'd been more invested in listening yesterday rather than nattering on about the details and asking all those unnecessary _questions,_ then you would know that."

"Unnece—" Tarquin made an awful, offended noise, in the back of his throat. "You mean to tell me you had _no_ questions about this proposed plan? None. Not even the idiot 'cover story' that he's come up with?"

"Watch it," Mulciber hissed. "Avery's not an idiot, Nott. He's got good ideas, good values. Just like what Tom—"

"Well, he's _**not**_ Tom, mate!"

Rophelius Lestrange snarled suddenly, stopping mid-step and turning a dark and sour look onto Tarquin. "And Tom hasn't been around much as of late, _has_ he? Great, grand ideas but his head is full!" He glared back down at Persephone and jabbed her sharply in the side with his wand, earning a disgruntled noise from the girl that he'd gagged in a most mundane fashion since his spells kept falling short. "Full of _**this**_ bint!" He shoved her forward again and followed close behind. "The sooner we're rid of her, the sooner we have him back and we can get back to business."

Nott stood there, gaping. Mulciber shot him another dirty look before falling in step with Lestrange and he lingered a moment longer before letting out another noise and moving too.

_Abraxas was right. And they were all buggered. Buggered, buggered, buggered. When Tom finds out about this—_

His line of thought stopped there and he shuddered.

_When Tom finds out…_

. . . . .

They arrived after a short amount of trudging through the snow dusted woods. Hermione felt a distinct shift in the world as they crossed the tree line and the press of a multitude of wards in the air became nearly tangible. They moved into a clearing upon a hilltop where Avery lorded over the area, dramatically looking off into the distance. Rosier, the sniveling, wormy one, stood by him, fidgeting slightly and shifting between his own confident thematic stances and checking to see if his fellow minion was watching. As the group of them closed in on the pair that was waiting, Hermione realized—past her haze of anger—that they were in the area that would one day overlook the Shrieking Shack. She would have taken a moment to appreciate the surrealness of it all if she hadn't been so _bloody __**furious**_.

"Ah! Miss Callaghan!"

Avery's voice made every hair on her body prickle and rise. If she'd been a cat (again) her fur would have been at maximum volume. As it was, her hair frizzed and she went a trifle woozy from the flare of her magic at the mere sight of him. Every part of her in that moment wanted to throttle the prick and toss him off a cliff but she'd exhausted herself too much from dissolving the spell from before. Hermione twisted her wrists, continuing her attempts at weaseling out of the less impressive yet insultingly more effective conjured bindings. All the while, she itched for the feel of her horcrux beneath her fingertips. Just one more touch, one more draw from the power housed within its pages and she would be able to slice the twat apart.

"So good of you to join us!"

_Oh_, how she longed for that power in that moment.

The boy gestured to the clearing with the largest of all shit-eating grins on his face. It turned into a condescending sneer as he neared to where she was being held captive. Hermione felt Lestrange's wand prod into the back of her neck, urging her to bow. She resisted it until the wood felt as if it were about to pierce through her skin and then, and _only_ then, did she begrudgingly grunt and bend.

Avery laughed, inordinately pleased with himself. "_Finally_, some manners! Well, thank you, Miss Callaghan. And again, thank you for joining us here. I am sure you're wondering what all this fuss is about."

Hermione's eyes narrowed.

_He was…monologuing?_

"Worry not, as I _do_ plan to tell you—"

_He __**was.**_

Hermione fussed with her bindings some more as Avery continued to talk.

He had begun to pace in front of them all, making wide, sweeping gestures to go along with whatever other nonsense he was spouting and Hermione drowned it all out. She didn't care what he had to say. She didn't care what he _thought_ he was about to do. All she really cared about was just slipping her thumb beneath this _one_ knot and then her arm just through _there_.

"—deserve respect from—"

"_**OUGH!"**_

Avery's enthralling monologue was interrupted by Lestrange's strangled grunt of pain as Hermione finally worked her way out of the mess of rope summoned to bind her and proceeded to slam her elbow into his gut. The noise was so sudden and startling that Avery was stunned out of his speech, eyes wide, gawking along with the others at something so decidedly _Muggle_ that she then moved on to slamming the blocky heel of one of her shoes onto the larger boy's instep. His resounding howl came and he doubled over, half intent on soothing the pain and half on strangling her in the assault and confusion. In the seconds that Rophelius used to close in, Hermione snarled and whipped her skull back into the unprotected cartilage of his nose so hard that the _**crunch**_ echoed throughout the clearing. She whirled around immediately after, ropes loosened so much so that they fell in a heap around her, and plowed her knee directly into her groin with so much force that all the ferocity and malice exited him in a pathetic wheeze; she barely missed the splatter of his wretched up-sick hitting the snow.

There was a collective, albeit brief, span of seconds where Tom's minions saw the assault and stood in stunned silence before everything had begun to move again.

It was Mulciber who she'd caught eyes with first. She saw him moving just after she dug in her heels and started to run towards the sparse cover of the trees.

Hermione heard Avery shouting, commanding them to follow her.

She felt the budding warmth at her back, the telltale sign of some sort of spell forming in the air behind her.

She heard Mulciber start to shout and then a different voice yelled over his…a jelly-legs jinx.

Against her better judgment, Hermione's head turned to look back over her shoulder and see Nott's outstretched arm. His wand was clearly aimed at a, now falling and flailing, Mulciber and he locked eyes with her.

"_**RUN!"**_

His shout was so unexpected that she nearly missed the wand he'd chucked at her head – _her_ wand. Reflexively, Hermione snatched the crooked wand from the air and felt the wood hum in her palm. Without a thought, she aimed at Avery and wordlessly willed her magic to do terrible, _awful_ things to the pissant.

Her eyes widened when she found it hesitant to respond.

To her right, Lestrange was recovering from the blow to his groin.

To her left, Rosier was shouting and hollering _"traitor"_ and engaging Nott. Near them, Mulciber was struggling with a counter-jinx.

As for Avery, well, he was livid…and decidedly _not_ stricken by a terrible, _awful_ curse.

Hermione's stomach dropped and in a surge of desperation, she angled her wrist and shouted, _**"LUMOS SOLEM!"**_

A light, so pure and white, flooded from the tip of her wand and blasted into the clearing. She barely turned her head in time to avoid being blinded herself and, tripping over her own feet, Hermione stumbled and turned and _**ran**__._

As she clawed her way past mounds of collected snow back into the woods, that line between silenced and unsilenced land sent a bodily shudder through her once she passed it. Her first instinct was to scream, to yell, to call for help, but given half a second of thought, Hermione stifled the urge. Just because the town could, _perhaps_, now hear her if she screamed loudly enough, it didn't mean that the much closer cluster of idiots that were fast approaching on her heels would not also pass through the wards in time to hear as well. She clamped her jaw shut before her rising anxiety could so readily betray her brain and give her position away.

Hermione clambered over some fallen trees and branches, wincing every time she misplaced a foot just so and the dooming echo of a twig snapping rang out throughout the woods. Cursing to herself when she heard a sudden burst of hushed voices from the direction she had come, she hurried to the cover of one of the larger trees, making as much haste as she could without stirring too much of the dead forest. Hunkering down into the smallest of balls, she tried to focus beyond the shocking cold of the snow pressing up and around her ankles and soaking through her leggings. Shutting her eyes, she tried again to silently will her magic to do as she beckoned, this time to mask the sounds of her steps. When it was, once again, concerningly sluggish to respond, fizzling out before ever completing the magical task, Hermione let loose another soft curse of frustration and her head fell back to the tree behind her with a muted thud. She was running on such little sleep, she'd bled out too much of her energy trying to unlock the secrets in that damned book and, without leeching power from the dark spells woven into it, she was finally starting to feel the toll of her presence being so far removed from its proper time.

In short, Hermione found herself in a terrible sort of way.

"_She went that way!"_

"_No, her footprints lead off to the east—"_

"Shut it, you sods!"

Avery's voice hissed from far too close a position, chastising them for being so loud right before their panting breaths, arguing, and their rustling footsteps all fell unnaturally silent.

Hermione's own breathing picked up when she realized they'd finally done what she couldn't. Her eyes reopened and darted around in the direction where she'd last heard them tromping around and, when there was nothing to be found, the sound of her heart in her ears became deafening. In her mind, muddled with an assortment of thoughts and memories from too many lives that weren't hers, it had been ages since she'd been so exposed; such easy pickings for these predators. Hermione tried to still her breathing, to ease her heartrate, to _calm_ herself in the face of this too familiar run through a set of woods with Voldemort's lackeys on her heels and, when she did, those clusters of thoughts began to separate like oil from water.

The artificial knowledge that had been so implanted in her mind of a future she'd not yet lived sank away and left her with the feelings and memories that were fresh and raw. The memories that may as well have just happened days ago—that _had_ happened not long before she'd been pulled from her bed by the siren's call of the magic implanting itself into her brain—replayed over and over in her thoughts. They filled her with the same peculiar sense of abandon, of recklessness that had always been a hair's breadth away for her to draw upon while she and the boys—_Hermione's breath hitched_—while _they_ ran. Her mind plucked apart everything she knew about her time, her abilities, and her current state and when a fallen branch near her left shook suddenly of its own accord, it was Hermione Granger, _**the Younger**_, that raised her wand.

"_**PROTEGO!"**_ Hermione shouted, pushing as much of her magic into a hastily erected shield as she could with both force of will and verbal incantation.

A series of streaks of light shot from the trio of bodies, now exposed from their disillusionment charm, and pounded heavily into Hermione's shield. With each blow, she felt more and more of her energy sapped from her limbs to funnel into her last vestige of protection. Avery's spell, more powerful and savagely cast than the others, cut through her barrier and tore a cry from her throat as it seared a hot line deeply into her arm through even the thick covering of her winter coat. The too familiar feel of her own blood, sticky and wet on her skin, pumped all the strength Hermione had into those next few movements.

With a lightning fast whip of her arm, Hermione yelled a _**DEPULSO**_ at the three and sent Avery, Mulciber, and Lestrange flying back through the trees. She struggled to her feet, strength even more questionable than before, and with her breath puffing out in hot clouds of mist she dug in her heels to take off down the nearest pathway she could find that was away from the lot of them.

The trio of Tom's minions, though still recovering, now stood between her and town.

The silenced field meant for her death loomed as a less than optimal alternative in the near distance.

In those moments, Hermione knew that she was _beyond_ a rock and a hard place; she was now fully dancing among the dead fields of the Underworld, much as her namesake might have, once upon a time.

The irony was not lost on her.

The spell blast that hit her back came just as her thoughts had dared to dip to their lowest levels of doubt and hopelessness. She had _thought_ her whole body had gone totally numb from the cold of the frigid snow and air yet, as the dark magic curled and shredded through her clothing to so jovially shear the layers of skin from her back, she found that she was wrong.

She was very, _very_ wrong.

The shrill cry of her pain filled scream sounded throughout the woods for a mere few seconds before she stumbled and fell once more back past the tree line and they then, instead, rebounded against the magically muted clearing's wards. The force of the spell sent her sliding harshly through the snow, her body digging a trench with the velocity at which she was propelled. The small rocks peppering the field became all the more noticeable as Hermione found every sharp point and jagged edge with her chest, stomach, and length of her thighs. The front of her clothing shredded pitifully. When she finally came to a stop Hermione managed to lift her head only to spot the threatening image of a wand being aimed down at her face. If the air hadn't had been wrung from her already, she would have released a noise of disbelief at the sight of a busted and bruised Silvas Rosier standing at the other end of it. Off to the side, Hermione could make out the heap of Tarquin Nott afflicted with a great many curses that had him bleeding and swollen several metres away but, judging by his intermittent rasping breaths, still alive.

A shadow panned over the snow around her, the footsteps of the owner falling in a lightly limping pattern until Lestrange came into view and snatched up her wand where it had fallen away from her in her tumble. He snarled and raised his arm, a foul spell forming on his lips but another hand came into view, stilling his.

"No," Avery's agitated voice sounded out, "she needs a _proper_ lesson first."

Hermione watched Lestrange seemingly warring with himself, apparently weighing the options of letting whatever spell it was he wanted to let loose fly, or listening to Avery. She wasn't sure if she should have been feeling relief or dread when his arm dropped back down to his side; by the look on Avery's face, she would soon be enlightened.

"Miss Callaghan," Avery began conversationally as he began to circle her, "still lacks respect…just as she did when we first met. It makes sense now, though. It _all_ makes sense now."

His eyes never left her as he walked. He looked at her like he was some predatory thing and she less than a morsel to be consumed for his pleasure or amusement. She hadn't been looked like that since…since the eternity she'd spent on the Malfoy's drawing room floor beneath the rancid taunting breath of Bellatrix Lestrange while she tried to bleed her of all her answers and _'stolen'_ magic.

It was then that the dread settled fully into her gut.

"I _knew_ you were beneath me from the second I laid eyes on you, you _**MUDBLOOD SLAG!**_"

The air in the clearing grew thinner and more stifling. Out of the corners of her eyes, Hermione saw the boys around her stiffen at the word and turn questioning looks towards their de facto leader.

Ignoring the obvious questions of the others, Avery kept on, a vindicated light entering his eyes as though the puzzle pieces had all just suddenly clicked together. "Does Tom know?" His words were venomous, disdainful, _accusatory_ and he finally stopped his circling to rear back a foot and bring it forward to plow violently into her side, knocking her onto her back. When her raw, ravaged back hit the ground, she arched up in a pained scream. He waited until it died down to pathetic whimpers before he added viciously, "How about Abraxas? You've got them both tied around your filthy little finger, don't you?" He laughed and spoke a bit more to himself. "Not Abraxas, I think…he knows better. Can't take a Mudblood home to mum and dad, no matter how pretty the witch."

The familiar words rang in her head and an image of an infuriated Tom from another time entered her mind.

He'd defended her from idiots like this once before, hadn't he? Once upon a time? As the pain in her back spread into her limbs in the form of a bone jarring ache, Hermione had herself the smallest of fantasies. Lights and colors spun before her eyes and the remnants of her energy drip, drip, dripped onto the snow from the wounds in her flesh, yet she still mused about a time where she could be one of those sorts of women that longed for a white knight—or in Tom's case, a dark one? —to come free her from the monumental amount of stupid so densely contained in men like Elliot Avery.

She thought about when she _had_ allowed Tom to find out the truth about her blood and also allowed herself to think about the spark of delight she'd had in proving to him that it mattered not at all with the wealth of knowledge and cleverness she'd possessed.

Along those lines, she thought about the closeness, something beyond their superficial agreement of power and plotting, that had developed so swiftly between them at the end of their last school year. After she'd shown him how to create and manipulate the dark artefact he'd been longing to have for so very long; after they'd brought about the death of one of their classmates, _together._ Something unspoken had grown once she'd broken that trivial barrier between them and he'd accepted all of what she was, all she could do.

As Avery snarled and spat and demeaned, Hermione instead remembered the strange anticipation and flutter in her stomach that she'd had at the thought of returning that year. It was not for the excitement of their plans but a private one that yearned for the company of someone that could actually keep up with her mind and her thoughts and _her_. If she'd ever imagined herself to find an equal of sorts, she never thought it would be in that of a young Dark Lord.

Hermione then thought of the cold reception she'd gotten from Tom upon their reunion and she remembered that it was just another disappointment, another small pleasure stolen from her in a life that she'd just sought to actually _live_ rather than die defending_._

No…no…it was a good thing that she wasn't the sort of woman that needed someone to save her, for, even in the darkest of times, she had her own intellect to rely upon. Just as she always had.

"How _**dare**_ you," Avery growled. "How _**DARE**_ you and your lot take magic from us!"

It was a good thing that Hermione Granger had a good head on her shoulders and was never the impulsive kind of Gryffindor—

"You're such a bloody _**idiot.**_" She snorted a laugh, then grunted in pain when her back brushed the ground again.

-a very good thing, that.

That earned her a hard kick to the gut before Avery hoisted her up by the lapels of her coat and slammed her into the nearest tree, delighting in her resounding cries and dragging a few more out by dragging her across the bark one more time. "YOU are a _**THIEF!**_ Wretched, putrid _**FILTH!"**_ He looked her over from head to toe and leaned so close their noses were nearly touching. "You want so badly to be among us? You desire _so_ much to have rights to what is ours?" Avery sneered and grasped her by the throat, pinning her more firmly to the tree as his other hand came up to brush in a mockery of tenderness over the pad of her lip and cheek. "I'm not just going to kill you; I am going to show you that you are _**nothing**_. I will show you _precisely_ what good Mudbloods are for in our world."

The threat stuck in the air.

Hermione, as well as the others standing around witnessing the exchange, stiffened at the weight of them. Memories that were hers, yet not, surfaced. She recalled vividly similar words that belonged to her old master, Rodolphus Lestrange, and her heart began to race in an anticipatory fear. It must have shown on her face because Avery's expression changed into that of a sadistic smile.

"_**AVERY!"**_ Tarquin Nott, having managed to roll half over to his side, was now clawing at the snow covered earth towards them. He hacked up something thick and bloody and growled. _**"THAT WAS NEVER PART OF THE PLAN YOU GORMLESS MAGGOT—AUGHH!" **_ Nott's shouts of protests were cut short when Silvas stomped over and sent an impassioned _crucio_ at him, causing his body to buck and bow.

In the slight distraction, Hermione attempted a struggle against Avery's grip, nothing but blood rushing in her ears and too vivid recollections of her time with the Lestranges; he was not deterred.

She was hyperventilating as her leggings were ripped further, the icy air hitting her skin. She blocked out the man in front of her, her thoughts instead alternating between the horrific pleasures of Rodolphus and all the knowledge of any magic that might help her now.

She didn't have her wand.

She barely had the energy to command her magic even if she had.

She shut her eyes tightly, cursing the backwards belief that everything always came back to blood.

That very blood she so vehemently chastised beat loudly in her ears.

It _always_ came back to blood.

_Blood._

Hermione's eyes shot open again, frantic but enlightened with a final, adrenaline fueled idea born of desperation and fear. Her teeth cracked down on the tip of her tongue, biting into the flesh and in a deft movement, she spit, spattering her blood onto Avery's face.

"_**UGH!" **_

Avery jerked back only a bit, but it was enough for her to move and slam her forehead furiously into the bridge of his nose, loosening his grip on her further and causing him to stumble.

In her desperation, Hermione's adrenaline chased away the sting of her wounds and soothed the aches of her bruises. It deadened her nerves and incited the rage at this pathetic, miserable boy. It dredged up a memory more recent that belonged more to her than her Elder self that she recalled from all the long nights spent reading and researching about horcruxes and how to destroy them. It pulled a tome to the surface of her thoughts, the pages clear and clean as though she'd read them just yesterday.

The inked words told of old magic, magic that was neither light nor dark in nature, but raw and primal and pure. It spoke of magic that existed before wands, before _words_. It detailed magic that was wild, flowing within every magical creature's very life making their heart beat, making them _tick_. It drew power from the very essence of their being and would be commanded by nothing but an indomitable will. It told about magic that was buried in only the purest and oldest of traditions. It was lost, it was forbidden, it was _blood magic._

Avery was a fool to think that magic could ever be stolen but he was right about one thing: it did _**always**_ come back to blood.

Wobbling on her feet, Hermione's thoughts focused only on the intense determination of freedom and she savagely gouged flesh from the back of her hand with the edges of her nails. She carved and carved and _carved_ an ancient rune there whose only meaning was _"power." _ Hermione vaguely felt the warm stickiness of her blood coating her hand as it bled through the cut, but more so, she felt the magic in that blood catching on its edges, singing to the symbol of power as it flowed. The song, too, was ancient, from before creation, and it reverberated with the energy of the other life around her.

Hermione had vowed that she would die before she would find herself a victim to such a thing, such a man, ever again.

Shakily raising her injured hand towards her mouth, she met the angry eyes of a blood spattered, scowling, and recovering Elliot Avery. Teeth clamping back down onto the side of her wounded tongue, she let more of her blood pool in the corner of her mouth before snarling it out in a spit spray across the open symbol in her flesh towards the boy.

The already waning light around them in the clearing dimmed further and time seemed to slow. The space around them tugged and lurched, reminding her of the ways apparating seemed to push and pull and stretch the world and its caster. Avery and the others froze, feeling the pull of this old, old thing.

Hermione's magic, vibrant and bright and _free_ vibrated, striking against the energy in the air, the inherent life of the world around them having heard, flooding to the call. The magic in her blood continued to sing.

It sang until it _**screamed**_ and the magic ignited with a resonating _**CRACK **_that caused the silencing wards to fissure and shake.

Flames the color of blood lit the clearing, forming from the spray as it fell towards the earth like burning napalm. Every spot it touched burst into a brilliantly glowing, glaring red-hot fire. It churned and it flared, feeding from the remainder of Hermione's life force to fan the flames, borrowing oxygen from the air around her, guzzling down the exhaled and shocked breaths of Tom's Knights as they watched in shock and awe. This fire took and _consumed_ the anger and fury from her emotions until the flames burned hotter, until they turned blue, and then white like the snow that was quickly turning into a flood of slush and water at its mere proximity. The flames scorched the earth, spreading in the wild way that was its nature and it carved trenches into the ground that mirrored the symbol carved into her hand.

Hermione shut her eyes, the feeling left in her limbs seeping out, replaced by a tingling numbness as the magic took every last vestige of her strength to punish the fools that had brought her there. Vaguely, she thought she heard them screaming, shouting, heard them tussling about, heard them _burning. _

She thought of how much of a failure this plan, this mission, had become.

She thought of how she would at least end it on her terms.

She thought of how painless it was to burn when the feeling was finally gone.

She wondered if she'd still see the others if she crossed over in the past.

_**HERMIONE!**_

The yell of her name came loudly from inside her head.

As far as odd things go, hearing voices had become par for the course. This one, however, this one was a _man's_ voice. Tom's voice.

_**HERMIONE!**_

Peeling her lids open, her head was turning in the direction of a familiar presence. Her vision blurred and amidst the growing flames she saw two shapes moving swiftly in her direction from another edge of the clearing. One of them was tall, a bit broad, and pale as the snow; the other was leaner, darker, yet no less striking from that distance. The dark one raised his arm and she made out a wand. Reflexively, she tried to raise her own arm and, though with no more means to do so, attempted to urge the fire there, to take out the last of them.

Instead, Hermione found herself falling, toppling, utterly spent, utterly wrecked.

The dark one squashed her flames as she fell.

The boys were still yelling, howling in pain.

The pale one moved in, was putting them out, corralling them.

And then, as her vision began to blink in and out, the dark one caught her, fell with her to the evaporated snow and the scorched earth.

He was calling her name, _**HER**_ name, again and again—_she __**swore**__ it was coming from inside her head—_ and it took her several long beats to make the fuzzy image of his face sharpen and clear up.

"Tom," Hermione breathed.

He'd said something, cursed in one language or another, whatever it was, she didn't understand it. She lolled in his grip, he'd started to murmur and there was a creeping sensation of warmth coming back into her body. She coughed, blood from her injured tongue dribbling from her mouth. Hermione felt Tom stiffen, felt him move more hastily. Even if she hadn't been lacking in energy and in blood, it would have taken her a moment to register that the new heat climbing into her body was the heat from him, from Tom Riddle, one hand in her hair and the other arm holding her to him as though he could shield her from the world.

She felt his lips at her ear, heard him murmur something that sounded like a healing spell…or _a dozen._

She felt his magic slipping through and in and around her, mending her skin, pooling in her body to lend it some of the magical essence that it so desperately craved after she'd bled hers all away.

She felt…tired. _So_ tired.

On the cusp of her consciousness slipping away, Hermione heard him whisper _"alive"_ and thought it funny that he seemed so relieved.

. . . . .

Cradling Hermione's unconscious body in his arms in far too familiar of a scene, Tom let his eyes run over her, checking once, and again, and once more to see that she was, in fact, still breathing. His eyes darted around her form several more times before his gaze finally panned upwards to cast it over his minions.

He spotted Abraxas, standing tall with his wand trained on Lestrange, Rosier, and Mulciber, the three all partially singed from the fire his witch had haphazardly sent to consume them. Nearby was Nott, sprawled and alive, but passed out and intermittently twitching from a curse Tom was quite familiar with. And, finally, nearest to where he had Hermione's form stretched across his lap, was Avery.

Avery who, though his flesh was half crisped and half melted from his body, his lungs likely singed from smoke and flame, was miraculously _also_ alive_._

Tom's expression darkened considerably as he watched the boy's chest rise and fall and stutter in a wheezing cough. He turned back to his witch, a hand coming to gently smooth over her cheek, vanishing the crust of blood at the corner of her mouth with the movement and then set far too placid a look up, in the direction of Abraxas and the others.

"Abraxas," Tom spoke lowly, gaze never wavering. "Take Persephone to The Room. _**NOW.**_ Care for her until I arrive. I require privacy with the others."

Tom's minions' shoulders trembled and if they'd not already been terrified by Hermione's inferno from before, those words would have sent them off the edge.

Abraxas gulped, his eyes darting to where his friend lay off to the side and back to the three of his quivering Housemates. "Yes…my Lord."

Leaving his wand trained on them until the last moment, Abraxas moved to gather the witch carefully in his arms, mending the tears in her coat to protect her brutalized but healing back and warming her with a charm to keep her more comfortable on the trip. Every time an arm or a leg flopped or her head lolled too abruptly, he internally cursed to himself, hoping his Lord would not skin him for the rough handling but, overall, he managed. Once he was satisfied and with Tom Riddle's eyes burning holes into his back, Abraxas turned to make his way back to the castle, intent on blocking out any of the sounds that would be soon to follow until he got past the edges of the wards so he could no longer look or see any of the going-ons in the warded space.

Moments before his toes were to pass the barrier, Abraxas heard a voice from behind him that was too serene, too cold, and _far_ too calm to belong to the same frantic man that had ripped his way like a slavering beast with a promise of prey through the secret passage to town; it chilled him to his core.

"Malfoy," Tom said, "if I find one hair out of place…one smudge on her skin…one _scrape_ on her knee when I arrive to collect you, I will bury your bones so deeply within the earth that your own parents will forget that you had ever drawn breath. Am I understood?"

His body went stock still, face stark white and Abraxas just wished the castle was that much closer. "Yes, my Lord. Completely."

. . . . .

Navigating the castle with a heap of unconscious witch in his arms was decidedly easier than Abraxas cared to think about.

With sacrificing his cloak to cover her, a mild amount of spellwork to mask her presence in his arms, and only one or two close calls in the halls, Abraxas made it to The Room of Requirement without much hassle. The dilemma as to what sort of environment one bids The Room to conjure when taking care of your Dark Lord's almost fatally wounded, now on the mend, girlfriend did not become so pressing until he was standing before the empty expanse of wall in the corridor and utterly blanking as to what would be appropriate.

That was when she groaned.

The noise startled him so much that Abraxas nearly dropped her but, fearing so keenly for his life, he recovered and clutched her as though she were his lifeline. The bundle of witch shifted and groaned again and the cleverly spelled cloak drooped enough to dissolve his illusion and revealed Persephone's face, all the way down to her neck where a series of fingerprints had emerged in bruises on her skin. The sight of them there made everything inside of him clench and he rattled his brain for somewhere that he could heal her and, perhaps, live to see the light of the next day. Scattered and frantic, Abraxas thought about some place comfortable, some place appropriate to heal her, and he paced along the wall three times until the door emerged. Letting out a heavy sigh of relief, he stepped up to the entrance and waited for it to open, expecting to see salves and potions, maybe a nice big cot, some things useful for healing and bandaging.

What Abraxas did _not_ expect, was the door to The Room to open and reveal a rounded room that was somewhat small— "cozy" perhaps —and decorated from wall to wall in a various array of reds and golds with a brightly burning iron chandelier hanging from the ceiling.

Ornate tapestries depicting familiar looking witches and wizards that he'd seen in school texts, lined the walls. Gold gilded frames with paintings the likes of which Abraxas was sure he'd once noticed in the castle hung over the tapestries. Nearest to where he stood, there was a circle of old, ragged, overstuffed burgundy arm chairs with hideous mounds of pillows on their cushions all huddled around a tiny table holding a Wizard's Chess set. On the far side of the room, there were too many sets of dark wooden seats, tables, and tall cabinets, chipped and worn and _anything_ but comfortable or functional looking, sloppily cluttering the wall. To his right, burned a great stone hearth with more of those ugly, ratty arm chairs positioned all around it along with a long ratty couch with more pillows and throws to match. Abraxas gazed upon the obnoxiously gaudy display of burgundy and gold when he caught sight of the soot tarnished emblem showing proudly over the grand fireplace. His grey eyes scanned over the carving of the proud lion within the shield. It was reared back on its hind feet, forepaws up and ready to fight, its great feline maw open in an imagined roar…and then he read the name emblazoned upon the carved banner beneath it.

Abraxas' lips curled in an instinctive sneer. _"Gryffindor?"_

"…_Malfoy?"_

Abraxas jumped, the load in his arms becoming airborne for the briefest of seconds before he returned to clutching it in a death grip. When he looked back down, dark brown, somewhat glazed eyes were blinking up at him from the crook of his arm.

"My Lady!" He responded quickly, choking down his distaste of The Room's interpretation of "comfort" and pushing past the threshold to lie her down on the couch. The door closed behind them, sealing the outside world away, and he knelt by her side, shaking out one of the hideous throws from the back of the couch to drape it around her form over his cloak and her coat. "My Lady, please, allow me to help heal the rest of your injuries."

Blinking several more times, Persephone's brows knit together, her eyes scanning over his face in a kind of obvious confusion. It wasn't until about the fourth time she'd swept her gaze from his forehead to the point of his chin and back that that furrow in her brow lessened, changing into something sterner, less friendly. "Abraxas."

Persephone's swiftly budding anger and displeasure bubbling to the surface in her tone made him swallow loudly and he hoped that it hadn't been _too_ loud for her tastes. He bowed his head immediately and moved his hands far from her person. His eyes set on the ugly threads of the huge rug that covered the bulk of the room's stone floor. "Yes, my Lady. How may I—"

The witch growled, reaching for him and attempting to sit up but only succeeding in strangling a wretched screech of pain from her lungs with the movement.

The sound of Persephone in pain was like a blade very slowly cutting away at each of his life's threads. "My Lady, please, don't strain yourself. Allow me to help you—"

"_**HELP ME?!"**_ Her snarl broke up her whine of pain and set watery eyes on him. "I've had _**ENOUGH**_ of you snakes!"

Persephone's small hand whipped out to fist into the folds of his shirt and a flare of magic that felt so very much like Tom's crackled between them. He bowed his head as low as it could go in such a position and Abraxas caught sight of the healing pink lines on the back of her hand. He recognized the pattern of it as the dark mark that had etched itself into the earth atop the clearing and his heart leapt into his throat. Abraxas decided that if he lived long enough for his Lord's punishment, he would consider it a personal victory.

"_Please,"_ he said again, this time shutting his eyes and daring to take hold of her hand with both of his. His jaw tensed as he pressed something into her palm. He felt her stiffen around the time she must have realized that it was her wand that he'd procured from Lestrange. "Please, the Dark Lord has commanded that I…_assist_ you in your recovery." Abraxas, unsurprised, felt that wand suddenly pressed into the hollow of his throat.

Shakily, Persephone pushed herself up onto one elbow, her wand arm out and trembling as she worked to keep it jabbing into her target. "Oh, he _has_, has he? Commanded the lot of you to kill me, then changed his mind at the last moment? _Fickle_, that one." Her voice was positively acidic.

It was his turn to give her a look of utmost confusion. "Tom _**never**_ ordered your death." His look must have been so genuinely stumped because it caused her significant pause. The press of her wand lessened a moment before it returned more aggressively.

"Don't _lie_ to me, Abraxas!" Persephone hissed. "I told you _**never**_ to lie to me!"

Abraxas swallowed, head tilting back and exposing more of his neck to her as he raised both of his hands in a kind of surrender. "Never, my Lady, I would never."

The ferocious lines of her face faded slowly and she asked the question with an all too obvious answer. "Who?"

He hesitated, licked his lips, then looked away. "...I'm sorry, I would never have brought him to Tom this year had I known—"

"THAT—LITTLE—_**WRETCH!**_ I should have killed him the very first time—_**ngh!**_" Persephone had surged off the cushions of the couch in a single, livid movement and ended nearly stumbling face first into the roaring fire when her knees gave out.

Abraxas darted forward to catch her, bearing her weight easily as it all came crashing back down in a crumpled mess into his arms. He fell heavily back onto his rear and gathered her weakened form onto the safety of his lap. His grey eyes took on an earnest and deeply pained look, taking to bearing the responsibility of that evening sole upon himself. He spoke shakily, "Please forgive me, Persephone."

In a rare lapse of propriety, Abraxas' hand reached to brush over the terrible mess of curls that'd taken back on their liveliness ever since Tom had worked his magic on her in the field, his thumb brushing almost tenderly over her cheek. At the touch to her cheek, Persephone jerked away as though she'd been scorched, her chest rising and catching in a harsh gasp as her body wrenched away from him and back towards the couch with her eyes wide and her wand thrust between them again.

It made something inside of Abraxas crack just that much more.

Abraxas held his hands up once again and averted his eyes back to the horrific rug. With his gaze cast down, he missed the few seconds where Persephone recovered her composure, apparently coming back to the present in a rush.

Clearing her throat and ignoring the embarrassing heat flooding into her cheeks, she waited until Abraxas lifted his eyes once more. "Did you—" She licked her lips, unsure if she wanted to truly know the answer. Her hand tightened around her wand. "—you knew what he was attempting to do?"

"It was a fool plan," Abraxas started, immediately opposing yet not denying it. "An utterly _foolish_ plan that should never have seen the light—" He paused just long enough to see the look on her face harden, eyes narrowing again to something unforgiving, and he swallowed. "I was never planning to kill you, my Lady. _Never_—I swear to it."

The fierceness in her expression lessened at the way he answered. She inspected him carefully, looking for something he wasn't sure he understood, but after a while, her arm drooped and she slumped tiredly back against the cushions.

"You were never planning to _kill_ me."

She'd spoken the statement oddly, as if tasting the words aloud and while it wasn't a question he shook his head anyway. "No, my Lady."

"But," she hesitated and a funny, conflicted look flickered across her features, "you _knew _about it. You _knew_ and you neglected to inform me _or_ Tom."

"Yes…my Lady."

"You realize, then, that your punishment is still forthcoming?

Abraxas' shoulders rose and fell in a very resigned fashion. "…yes."

Persephone watched him for a long while during which those minutes ticked by with only the crackling sound of the fire and the loudness of the room's colors to break up the otherwise silent space.

"Perhaps…it is best to do as your Lord commands, then," she spoke more softly than before. "Assist me...I _should_ like to be more recovered when Tom arrives."

A small feeling of relief passed through him at her words.

He would take his forgiveness in whatever fashion he could get.

. . . . .

"This…" Tom spoke lowly as Mulciber, Rosier, and Lestrange trembled in bloodied heaps around his feet. "…is merely the beginning for you. Miss Callaghan—_**MY**_ _**Lady**_—"

The proclamation from his lips made his followers melt further into the ground.

"—shall have her fill of you miserable sods once she awakens. If she desires your screams, she shall have them. If she wants for your heads, you will present them. If she longs for your eternal servitude, that, too, shall—be—_**hers**_. Am I _**explicitly **_clear?"

Tom felt his words thicken into something resembling that of a snarl and he took immense pleasure in the way his minions crumbled beneath its rumbling weight. Their whimpers of acquiescence thrilled and disgusted him at the same time. _Pathetic_.

Sufficiently stretched and warmed up from his brief round of torturing the few bodies that hadn't been strewn about the clearing when he and Abraxas had arrived, Tom turned a more concentrated look of hatred onto the still wheezing, still struggling, half crisped body of Elliot Avery. He rolled his wand in his hand, running his tongue across the fronts of his teeth while thinking of the life that the pillock had attempted to take that day.

The memory of his Hermione and their son bleeding out in his arms crashed his vision.

The so very real feel of her, heavy and limp and lifeless sprawled over his legs still lingered. He could still feel the slick of their blood and smell the metallic tinge of copper when he breathed deep.

Tom may not have spoken for Hermione—_Persephone_, whatever mantle she wore here—before then, not yet, but she _**was**_ his. That should have been clear. She had been his in another life and she'd come all this way to be his again…possibly_._ Though he had yet to truly make a final decision on the matter, _this_ insignificant speck very nearly stole the choice from him.

And _NO ONE_ stole from him.

Tom planted a heavy boot onto Avery's stuttering chest, pressing him down more fiercely into the branded ground. Sneering down at him with a fury that radiated from his frame, he recalled the errant thought of his other self: _dead too quickly, should have made it longer._ He growled, "We'll make _this_ longer."

With a harsh flick of his wand, Tom sent some of Avery's wounds to mend. He healed nothing that would stave off the bulk of his pain and merely triaged the more serious ones back to a stage that would keep the boy alive and well enough to feel all that he had in store for him for just that much longer. Nearly salivating at the thought of impressing all of his desires for revenge onto Avery, Tom made to extract the boy's thoughts. He would have Avery's memories of his plan and all that had happened before he'd arrived so that he could direct each and every stage of punishment more appropriately.

Just as it was when he'd delved into Avery's mind to fix the damage that Hermione had done to him before, the boy was an open book. His mental walls, their defenses, they were as sad and pathetic as he. Tom was able to pluck apart memory after memory, digging into the details of his plan. He found out what weak, thinly veiled story they were to use to cover their tracks and, while the wards used to secure the space were impressive and the conviction with which Avery executed the plan was admirable, it was all-in-all horribly strung together. Satisfied with that knowledge, Tom moved through Avery's more recent thoughts, experiencing the entire encounter from the boy's viewpoint.

He witnessed the rag tag chase through the woods.

He saw the sad excuse for his cloaking spells and cunning while trying to ambush her.

Tom watched the skin of Hermione's back shaved away in layers as Avery's spell made contact.

_He remembered the way her skin opened and the blood came._

He watched as Avery's view swept over her figure and his face neared hers.

A sense of power swelled within this particular memory, Avery's thumb brushed over her face. Tom felt a fundamental shift of intent during this scene while in the boy's skull.

He saw clear, vivid pictures of precisely what Avery had intended to do.

The pumping of Tom's own blood in his ears became loud and livid as he watched his witch fighting, watched as her clothing was torn, ripped to expose more of her skin. His vision became narrowed to a few sparse details within this memory and the whole world tinted red. A dangerous sound had begun to build at the back of his throat, hissing through his teeth as he watched only until he saw that Hermione had freed herself, until he had been assured that what Avery had intended upon happening had _**not**_. Only then did he forcefully eject himself from the boy's memories.

Upon exiting Avery's mind, Tom stumbled back from his prone form, processing all that he had just witnessed. The details were burned into his brain, to the backs of his lids, and the longer he lingered on any one of them, the faster his heartrate came. His stare had fixated to one of the few spots of unmelted snow left nearby but his actual sight was somewhere else entirely. His hearing dulled until the sounds around him had become tinny and muted; all except for the very labored breathing of Elliot Avery laying _so_ very close by.

Tom grew unnaturally still.

. . .

"_**Can't bring a Mudblood slag home to mum and dad no matter how pretty she may be, eh Tom?"**_

. . .

The wood of his wand creaked loudly in his grip. His hands began to shake.

. . .

_**"It's nothing, Tom. Just talk… You shouldn't have-"**_

. . .

Only his eyes shifted from that patch of snow directly to Avery's half-melted face.

. . .

_**"I SHOULD have and I WOULD again…"**_

. . .

Thoroughly disoriented but aware _enough_ to notice Tom lingering nearby, Avery opened his scarred mouth to beg. _"Puh-pl—ease, muh Lo—"_

The bestial roar that boomed from Tom Riddle's throat at the sound of Avery's voice made the ground tremble. His capacity for coherent speech was lost. Tom turned with a look that held the heat of Hermione's inferno in his gaze and he leapt on the man.

Avery's screaming filled the muted dome of the clearing.

. . . . .

So very many hours had passed since Hermione and Abraxas first arrived at The Room. With his help and some of her direction on healing spells, Hermione was able to improve from not-quite-_everything_ hurts into _palatable_.

Once she was feeling better, Abraxas helped to move her back onto the couch and piled her up with as many blankets and pillows as she so desired. After the more serious tasks had been accomplished, Hermione had tried to strike up a conversation with Abraxas but he'd taken to keeping his answers succinct, though not clipped, and attempting to coax her to resting whenever she got too animated. His insistence was agitating, but when she finally accepted the fact that she was well beyond her limit for her exertions for the day, Hermione finally settled down. As it was, in that late hour, she'd taken to dozing in and out of alertness by the fire with one particularly fluffy blanket tugged all the way up to her nose so that all but her toes were covered; those she's snuck under the warmth that was Abraxas' leg as he sat stiffly on the far end of the couch trying not to let his eyes shut.

Tom found them there, with Hermione lightly snoring and Abraxas' head nodding to one side.

At the sound of The Room's door opening, Abraxas shot to his feet, wand outstretched and his eyes blinking open. His reaction earned him an unkind look from Tom, but he shifted it onto Hermione, where it changed into one that nearly openly spoke of relief.

His sudden presence was like a flood of cold water down her front and Hermione's brain clicked back on and whirred into action. It very quickly picked up the line of questions she'd been mentally preparing for him all evening after Abraxas' willingness to converse was established as nonexistent and before she'd drifted off into her doze. If her ire at his earlier appearance hadn't been so pressing in the forefront of her mind, Hermione _might_ have inquired as to what in the world he thought of to get The Room to let him in to this rather impressive replication of the Gryffindor Common Room. But instead, she, too, shot off the couch and approached Tom while still partially swaddled in her blankets.

"I had everything under control!" Hermione jabbed Tom weakly in the chest, actually stumbling back with how much effort it took her to push and how very little he budged.

Tom took the poke without flinching and caught her with a steadying hand on either of her arms. He ignored her and spoke over her head to Abraxas. "Abraxas, return to the clearing."

"_There was no need for you to interfere!"_ Hermione snapped persistently.

"Speak with the others." When Hermione wobbled again, Tom righted her without looking. He missed Abraxas' uneasy glance towards his witch, too focused on giving his instructions. "Clean up the mess, and follow through with his idiot cover story."

"_Tom!"_

"_His_ story, my Lord? F-forgive me but…is there not concern that what you've do—" His almost phrasing earned an acidic look from Tom and he cleared his throat. "—what was done…may be traced back to us?"

"I was working on a special project for Professor Slughorn and am quite unable to attend functions outside of the castle due to the school's very strict rules." Tom shrugged nonchalantly.

"_Tom!"_ Hermione growled, growing angrier by the moment at being disregarded so rudely.

Tom paused when she called his name but only took a second to look decidedly pleased with himself, clearly still speaking to Abraxas. "And besides, I rather like the irony."

"_**TOM!"**_ Hermione shouted with a huff and a stomp of her foot that sent her blankets half drooping from her frame. She turned an ominous glare upwards and hissed, "Are you even _**listening**_ to me you rude, arrogant, egotistical _**pillock?**_"

"Of course I am, love."

Tom's response was so automatic and so offhanded that it caught Hermione entirely by surprise. She stiffened in his grip and her cheeks heated to a colorful pink as her anger fizzled just a bit in lieu of confusion and embarrassment. Her eyes darted behind her to catch Abraxas who had blanched at either her outburst or Tom's response, but aside from that, he'd made no mention of it.

Still agitated but now beginning to question if the Tom Riddle she was staring up at was the same Tom Riddle she'd last spoken with so many days ago, Hermione stilled her tongue until they were, at the very least, alone.

"Also, Abraxas, after the cleanup, do make sure that you and Nott are available to meet with me after classes tomorrow."

There was a very familiar glint in Tom's dark eyes and Hermione's fears of a strange Tom doppelganger were squashed.

Abraxas swallowed loudly, a fine tremble in his shoulders now. He bowed his head and backed away from the pair of them looking very suddenly sick. "Y-yes, my Lord."

The most regal Malfoy exited the room, head down, body half bent in obvious submission as he traced his steps backwards to The Room's entrance, only turning his back on them at the very last moment it took to leave them to their privacy. Only after Abraxas was gone did Tom turn his full attention onto Hermione.

It ignited a hot anger in her as soon as their eyes met and her indignance picked up right where it had left off. She pushed away from his light hold and smacked him _quite_ hard on the arm. "You had no right! I didn't _need_ your help!"

Tom allowed himself a long look at her, taking in as many details as he could at their proximity to one another. "I could see that."

His calm, almost absent, reply only heated her skin more and Hermione huffed more loudly. "Everything was going precisely as I'd planned!"

"Yes," he said, "I saw that too."

Tom's latest stoic response just made her hackles rise.

_He is so bloody infuriating!_

Juvenile when he should be adult.

Hotheaded when he should be patient.

Too-bloody-calm when he should be giving her the Merlin-damned satisfaction of arguing with her!

She swore he did it on purpose.

"They were _**MINE**_ to punish, Tom!" Hermione snarled so heatedly that her hair frizzed and crackled a bit. There may have been a spark of lightning that jumped from one of its ends to the wooly threads of her blanket or it may have just been static; it was difficult to say.

Tom smirked at her being so animated, so lively, so _alive._ If his eyes softened at the sight of it, it was too brief an event to say for certain. "And they _still_ are."

"_**YOU**_—" At Tom's almost fond tone she fumbled, finally hearing what he'd said, and Hermione cooled some with a wide-eyed look. Her mouth formed several different starts to a question before it finally settled on, _"What?"_

"I said…" Tom wordlessly urged her blanket to comfortably rewrap itself around her shoulders where it had fallen loose, his own magic acting as another warm layer over top of it before he continued. "They are yours to punish. They may need a day or two to heal properly for your pleasure, but they _are_ yours."

Hermione blinked incredulously, unsure of if she'd heard correctly. When all that he did was continue to stand there, a respectful distance away, looking at her, veritably drinking her in with his eyes, she shifted on her feet and managed to maintain eye contact as she asked, "You are telling me that you _didn't_ kill them?"

As though a torch had just been snuffed, the room grew suddenly cold. Even with the fires still burning bright and hot, the air became thin.

The pleasant ease to Tom's expression shifted, _soured_, and his voice was had taken a darker tone. "One."

Hermione connected the dots easily and, by the look on his face, she knew exactly _which_ one he had eliminated. She felt her agitation, her anger, and a certain terrible anxiousness that was all at once suffocating explode back into existence.

"You had _**no**_ right!" She said again, livid.

The thought of Avery being dead, of her not having been the one to kill him, it made her heart hammer and her whole body began to tremble. It was subtle at first but grew more noticeable over the scant few seconds before she hissed at Tom and reared back to smack him again.

"He was _**MINE!**_ After what he did—!"

"_**I KNOW what he did!"**_ Tom snarled. Any remaining gentleness had bled from him at the mention of it. "I _**SAW**_ it from his own mind!"

"_**Then how DARE you take that satisfaction from me!"**_ Her voice shook and her eyes stung.

"_**I KNOW!"**_ He growled in a desperate kind of frustration, running a hand back through his hair.

Tom's anger seeped out, however, upon hearing the tremor in her voice, seeing the way her frame wobbled. He swiped a hand over his face, scrubbing at his eyes a moment before pushing his reaction away, swallowing it down. He reached that hand out to her, intent on stroking a soothing line over her curls but her body flinched away of its own accord.

He recalled the way Avery had touched her. And then the way he'd _tried_ to.

Tom's very recent anger flared back to life and the growl that escaped him could hardly be named as his own voice anymore. He breathed deeply, shut his eyes, and tried to shutter those emotions away. The image of his witch looking so very stricken at this news created an ache deep in his core and a desire so persistent to scrub it from the face of the earth that he was hardly thinking of the words as he spoke them.

"I know and I am…_sorry._" Apology tasted strange on his tongue.

Hermione's jaw flexed, her chin jutted forward and the moisture in her eyes turned his skin cold. The look she wore was not merely one of stubbornness, but of hurt, of a hurt he'd seen after the Masque once before, of a hurt he'd found he so feverishly never wanted to be the cause of again. A part of him understood: he'd taken this closure from her.

"It was not my intention," Tom spoke again after a stretch of silence trying to find the words. He shook his head, knowing further apologies would not replace what he'd taken. Exasperated, he held his hands out, palms up. "I cannot bring him back in any form, there is simply not enough of his body _left!_"

He'd meant it as a simple explanation, and perhaps it was something about speaking so earnestly on a subject so morbid and in such a plain manner, but his words had made a crack in her expression.

Hermione blinked at him, almost in wonder that he could talk about it as though he'd just forgot and left the kettle on and boiled out all the water. She would not call such an oddity endearing, but neither would she reflect on the fact that they were even just standing there, elusively discussing assault and murder in such a mundane fashion. "Not enough _left_?" She asked, squinting incredulously. "What do you mean not enough _left_?"

Only just realizing his admission, Tom broke eye contact, finding something terribly interesting off to one side of where she stood. "I mean what I said. Elliot Avery has ceased to be in a most…_thorough_ sense."

She watched the fine muscles of his jaw and neck working, knowing that the gears in Tom's head were spinning and whirring far too much, far too quickly, for simply that to be the answer. Hermione's eyes narrowed further. "And what did you _do _oh _'Great, Dark Lord'—" _Hermione hissed ruthlessly, feeling more vindicated by the second as she continued to think on what he'd stolen from her. "—that would _so_ thoroughly, so very conveniently have taken this satisfaction from me? What is it, Tom, that you claim explains yourself? That _**excuses**_ you from—"

"_**I TORE HIM APART!"**_

Tom's rumbling growl reverberated in the room as his glare whipped back to her face though the ferocity and viciousness therein were directed some place very far away. Still, the bestial savagery in his eyes made Hermione take a jolted step back. Her movement seemed to snap Tom back to the present and she very slowly saw a sanity returning to his stare. It was a gradual, steady thing, like a time lapsed sunset, as the hot, feral tint of his gaze bled out and a coolness swept in as he returned to her—returned to see _her_.

Tom still had a tightness to his shoulders and though his eyes were as gentle as she'd ever seen them when set upon her, there was still something there, something angry, something she'd seen once before in the eyes of a Tom Riddle that stood by her in a classroom while on the verge of his expulsion. Hermione remembered this look. It made her breath catch and she swallowed past a lump in her throat.

"…with your _bare_ _hands?_"

Tom's nostrils flared, his jaw tensed, eyes flicking around the room a moment before his quick wit failed him and whatever other explanation he sought to give was washed away by the thrill of the memory. He pursed his lips and gave a terse nod. "I wanted to feel it," Tom said slowly. "I _saw_—_**I FELT**_ what he tried to—" He took a deep, steadying breath, the low rumble seating itself in his chest. "I wanted to _**feel** _him die."

As he spoke on it, Hermione could still see that very intense desire smoldering in his stare and she saw his fingers twitch as though reliving the moments. In a series of seconds, many things became illuminated: Tom Riddle had killed a man in a blind rage; Tom Riddle had killed a man as a Muggle would, _without_ using magic; And, perhaps most jarringly, Tom Riddle had killed a man because of what he'd almost done _to her_.

She felt her chest tighten and, at once, breathing was hard.

Thoughts and words and _things_ that were simply impossible floated through her head as she tried to wrap her head around it all.

A taut, delicate silence stretched between them, neither speaking, only breathing, only looking at one another with things decidedly left unsaid.

Finally, unwilling to think on it further, she blinked away the sting to her eyes and shifted her blankets until one of her hands was free.

Hermione extended her hand between them a bit unsteadily and kept hold of his gaze. "Show me, then." When he hesitated, making no move to touch her again, she steeled herself and moved forward into his space, placing her hand in one of his as she tilted her head up. "I deserve this. Show me. Allow me to have the satisfaction second-hand where I was denied the first."

Tom's eyebrows went up at the demand, the ferocity of it surprising him. He glanced at the delicate hand placed in his and he gingerly turned it until both of their palms and fingers were pressed together. He threaded his fingers with hers in a way they'd not done since the end of the last term and his opposite hand rose to cup her cheek, stopping midway and hovering there. He grimaced, fingers twitched, and he checked her face. "May I?"

"I'm not porcelain." Hermione scoffed at him, offended.

Tom shook his head seriously. Never breaking from her stare, he murmured, "No, you are not. Though I still desire your permission, Miss Callaghan. May I?"

Hermione inhaled shakily. "Y-yes, Tom." He nodded and closed the gap, the press of his palm on her cheek so warm and familiar.

Both of them trembled at the contact.

Staring deep into her rich, dark irises, Tom did everything he could to ignore the layer of tears that were still too close to slipping free and chose, instead, to note how clear her eyes looked in comparison to the other times he'd been so near. They were different, no longer swirling with a deep, dark whirl of dark magic, yet he felt the depths of it there still, weakened, but there along with something more raw and possibly even more powerful than he'd felt before.

Tom's thumb brushed the cheek that'd only hours before been painted with scrapes and blood and bruising; she did not flinch away. Nudging at her mind with his magic, he asked again, "May I?"

Hermione's lashes fluttered but she nodded and then promptly gasped when she felt the curl of his heady essence drape itself so very intimately around a piece of her consciousness.

It was like a warm throw, comfy socks, and a roaring fire on a freezing day all wrapped into one brilliant sensation.

Tom tugged and coaxed and the feel of being dragged from her mind into his was several parts invigorating and several parts nauseating.

She stumbled forward as the ground seemed to lurch beneath her feet and her hand unlaced from his to catch herself on his shoulder.

He wrapped his freed arm around her waist to hold her close.

Their consciousnesses walked together, arm in arm, through the neatly organized levels of his mind to the memory she sought.

. . .

_Avery screamed, dredging up a spike of energy to flop over to his front and try to claw his way, with haste, __**far **__away. _

_He was getting away._

_He would __**NOT**_ _get away._

_Patches of exposed grass and dirt, singed from the earlier fires reignited._

_Pebbles and larger rocks shook and rattled against each other the closer he came to latching onto to Avery's squirming, wriggling form. _

_Avery scrambled, begging, __**pleading**__ for mercy but he just continued, clambering after him through the snow with only one thing on his mind._

_**He would NOT get away.**_

"_**MUH LORGH—RAUUGH!"**_

_He cut the boy's scream short, wrenching him back by the hem of his trouser legs and dragging him back through a small wall of fire that had come into existence only seconds ago. What cloth hadn't already been scorched away or fused to his body was ignited as well and the flames added even more urgency to Avery's screams._

_He roughly gathered Avery to his feet with him, snarling something that wasn't English, something that may have very well been inhuman._

_The pounding wave of fury and vengeance clouded this portion of the memory and when vision was again restored, Avery was being lifted and slammed face first into the nearest tree once, and then again, and __**again.**_

_The vague recollection that magic was an option floated through his consciousness and he growled it away._

_He wanted to feel the very moment the life left this poor excuse for a wizard._

_He wanted to feel it more than he'd wanted anything in that moment._

_He flipped him around and his fingers dug like claws into Avery's flesh where he'd still had enough nerves to feel the pain._

_The fires that had taken hold of the remnants of Avery's clothing were now licking up his own. He vaguely felt the sensation of pain between when the flames seared away his skin and his dark magic worked to mend his flesh, but he ignored it in favor of strangling the air from the boy's scarred throat._

_Avery was flailing, clawing at him, at his arms, at his face, and all he could feel was the stuttered beating of Avery's pulse against his palm._

_He squeezed and he squeezed._

_He gritted his teeth together and must have managed a spell, because several cuts opened on Avery's face._

_He saw the vision of a woman with tanned skin and dark curls stumbling forward, blood everywhere._

_The sounds of taunting laughter echoed in his skull._

_The weight of the woman was heavy in his arms._

_There was blood in her hair, on her hands, her ring was painted in red._

_Tom felt a fury so blinding and white that he could do nothing but guzzle it down, devouring it until it no longer obscured his vision._

_The breath had long since been choked from Avery's body._

_His head had been hammered into the, now wet, bark of the tree again and again until there were splatters of other things clinging sickly to each little chip and crevice._

_The sound of bones crunched and grated, fire flared over his limbs but there was no longer resistance._

_The flames had crept into Avery's open mouth, his tongue lolling out and blistered, eyes boiled from his very skull._

_His screams had stopped long before Tom finally ceased the motion of painting the landscape with his blood._

_Chest heaving, his sleeves half burnt away before his errant magic had snuffed out the flames, Tom did not release Avery's body from his grip until its upper half had no longer resembled anything remotely like that which it had before. The blood coated corpse flopped messily to the ground and he followed it with his eyes to be sure that it was truly dead._

_His sense of awareness returned to him long enough to place himself back in the clearing near Hogsmeade. _

_It was quickly followed by an image of Hermione grinning up at him a moment before he tucked her neatly into the circle of his arms, head nestled perfectly beneath his chin so warm, solid, and __**alive.**__ The scene __flashed past his vision, he blinked, and it was gone._

_Tom scanned the field, the memory of Hermione, of how he'd found her about to be consumed by her own conjured fire in that very clearing wiped away his brief stretch of peace and he recalled __**why**__ it was she was not currently there._

_He recalled why she had been swiftly removed from the field to rest and recuperate in The Room with Abraxas as her guard._

_He recalled the scene that had played out before he and Abraxas had arrived and was quickly overtaken by a ferociously growing rage._

_He remembered again what had happened—what had __**nearly**__ happened._

_He turned towards the trio of his minions who were now doing their best to disappear into the earth and he remembered—vividly—what the three of them had spectated and very nearly __**allowed**__ to happen._

_His feet were moving before he'd realized it._

_He crossed the several metres of field space in seconds._

_His lips peeled off his teeth as he reached the nearest of the three and wrenched their head back with his blood slicked fingers in their hair._

_He would know precisely how much each of them had contributed to the happenings of the encounter with his witch._

_He jammed his wand so ferociously to this one's temple that he was sure the point had broken through the skin._

_They would be able to hide __**NOTHING.**_

"_**LEGILIMENS!"**_

. . .

They came out of the memory, foreheads pressed together, both of Tom's hands now cupping her cheeks and Hermione's wadded tightly in his lapels. They panted on a shared breath, skin tingling and hearts both hammering in time with one another's.

Hermione's fingers flexed in the cloth of Tom's shirt and a sob left her, one of relief and a satisfaction that sat heavily in her gut with as much guilt as pleasure. She tried to turn away, not caring to share the vision of her crying face with him, but he stilled her movements.

"Was it to my Lady's satisfaction?" Tom's voice was low and gravelly as he asked.

"Yes," Hermione breathed too quickly. Her stomach fluttered at the title, at the weight it held coming from him. "Yes," she murmured again, "thank you." She could still taste the rawness of his emotions and his magic on the back of her tongue. He was exactly as she'd remembered him to be. Hermione flushed at the sensation and something about it struck so deeply within her, so very close to home that another soft sob escaped.

Tom swiped the tracks of tears from her cheeks with both thumbs and pulled away enough to have a good look at her face and the fast fading pink lines of cuts and scrapes forcibly on their way out. "Anything you require, _Hermione_, you shall have."

She felt as though she should have been surprised to hear her name on his lips but it had resonated through her mind so many times before on dreams and visions and memories that, to finally have it spoken aloud in the space between them was anything _but_ a surprise.

It was a relief.

It was cathartic.

It felt _right._

On a shaky breath, Hermione asked, "What brought you to me tonight, Tom?"

Absently, she leaned into the warm press of his hand, searching his face for clues but found too little of what she was looking for and too much of unnamed emotions threatening to bubble to the surface in the lines around his eyes and mouth as he gazed down at her. She found something spectacularly interesting to look at slightly to the side of his head. Her heart pounded in her ears as this all felt _too_ familiar.

"What do you know?" She took a deep breath and set her eyes on him again. "What have you _seen_?"

Tom's soothing touch faltered at the question and, for just a second, Hermione watched his focus shift to some place far, far away. A fine muscle in his jaw ticked, his nostrils flared, his teeth ground against themselves, and then he was back. "Information was brought to my attention that bade me to…reconsider my previous decision to dissolve our arrangement."

His answer was cool, deliberate-not at all what she was searching for.

Hermione's eyes narrowed. She temporarily shoved the bulk of her emotional upset away into neat little box, as she did with so many things, choosing to press on more keenly to this topic at hand. "And through exactly what means was this information relayed to you?"

He looked simultaneously pleased at the spark of her tenacity and irritated by it. Tom's mouth pressed into a thin line. "A vision."

"A vision," she echoed. Hermione reflected on the store of scenes that had surfaced in her mind that had not allowed themselves to be so easily shuttered away. Her thumbs were idly rubbing across the fabric of his collar and the sensations threatened to send her into a dizzying spin. The feeling of being there, with him, so close and indelicately entwined thumped through her being with the most disconcerting sense of déjà vu. Hermione tugged the meat of her bottom lip between her teeth and looked up from beneath her lashes at him. "Or a memory?"

An unspoken understanding sparked between them.

Hermione watched every line of muscle in Tom's body go rigid, his grip on her tightening in a way that made her chest ache as it did when witnessing them embracing in that alternate life. "Wh-what did you see, Tom?"

Tom's fingers began to dig in almost painfully into the curve of her cheeks and if not for her yelp of pain, he might have bruised her skin. He removed his hands from her at once and turned away in an attempt to mask the look trying to emerge upon his face. "Enough."

"Tom…" Breathing seemed difficult for him all at once and Hermione had never seen him look so out of sorts. "Tom, _what_ did you see?"

"_**Enough**__, _Hermione!" He snarled, whirling back around with eyes that were a bit too red and bloodshot around the edges, a hair too glossy in the light of the hearth.

Hermione hopped back half a step.

Tom shut his eyes and drew in a deep, steadying breath, exhaling it in a shaky release before reopening them. Whatever it was that'd been threatening to overwhelm him was gone. "I've seen…_enough_." He paused, steeled himself, and spoke again, "And…_Hermione Granger_…if you shall allow it, I would like to reinstate our agreement."

The silence stretched between them. It hung as heavily as the syllables of her name spoken aloud in this time and place.

Hermione made no attempt to hide how she looked at him while mulling over the answer, thinking on her decision to such a request.

Finally, swallowing thickly, she raised a hand between them once more, the only real sign of truce she could provide at that time. Hermione watched as Tom examined it in silence before stepping forward and extending his own. His fingertips traced along the back of it, trailing over the fading symbol in her skin; there was amusement in his expression and she surmised that he recognized the rune though he still did not comment.

Tom caught and held her eyes, deftly curling his hand around hers and, instead of shaking it, he delicately lifted it closer to his lips. He bowed slightly, peering at her from over top the dainty expanse of her knuckles and he placed the softest of chaste kisses to her skin, more a brush of lips than a kiss at all.

Hermione's heart was in her ears, the devil at her fingertips.

Her devil smiled at her.

And, Merlin help her if that smile wasn't like being home.

. . . . .

The next morning, for the first time in many weeks, the far end of the Slytherin table in the Great Hall was devoid of any and all conversation.

Tom, in his usual seat, had already dished several portions of breakfast items onto the plate at his side and was now helping himself to his own. Across from him loomed Rophelius Lestrange, Frankfort Mulciber, and, to a lesser extent, Silvas Rosier with little other than some plain servings of toast and half a scoop of eggs set before them. The trio would occasionally teeter or rock, their discomfort at having to sit upright at the table rather obvious—nearly as obvious as the horribly discolored bruises and healing lacerations decorating all of their faces and necks.

To Tom's right, sat Abraxas Malfoy who, that morning, was entirely too interested in pushing his breakfast potatoes around his plate to engage any of his fellow Housemates.

"Rophelius," a soft female voice hummed, "could you please pass the marmalade?"

Tom glanced over to his left, the smallest of smirks quirking his lips as he broke from slicing a sausage into neat little cubes to see Hermione sitting primly with a piece of toast in one hand and table knife in the other. When there was no movement, however, his attention shifted forward again to a very stiffly sitting Rophelius Lestrange who looked to be having a terrible time, deciding whether or not he wanted to touch the marmalade that was so clearly in front of Hermione's plate already. "Lestrange," Tom purred, "did you not hear Miss Callaghan's request?"

Lestrange's eyes darted up, laden with a sudden fear. "Of course," he replied quickly. "My apologies, Miss Callaghan." He reached for the jar and winced, the sound of pain hissing through his teeth and stopping the stretch of his arm immediately.

"Here," Tarquin Nott, lightly bruised in comparison to the rest of them all, spoke up hoarsely from Hermione's left. "Allow me." His hand came into view, shaky and a bit twitchy, but steady enough to grasp the small jar of orange marmalade and nudge it the scant few centimetres closer to her plate. "Anything else for you?"

Hermione quirked a brow at him, stifling her grin, and shook her head.

Nott replied with a smile and a nod and went back to trying to maneuver eggs into his mouth with an arm that kept intermittently spasming and trying to grip a fork with fingers that were still a touch swollen.

An intently serious and only mildly sympathetic look on her face, Hermione turned back to Lestrange, staring at him, unblinking, and made a very slow, very pointed set of movements in the way she spread the marmalade over the toast. "Terrible news about your friend," she said, unprompted. "It's fortunate that you lot were all able to get away, however. Please." Hermione's vaguely sympathetic smile stretched, showing one too many teeth to be kind. "Do tell me again, what exactly _was_ it that came upon you all in that field—that field that was so very far away and secluded from that seldom travelled path as you were making your way back to the castle?"

The silence was taut and uncomfortable.

When no one answered, Hermione set her stare on Rosier.

Rosier curled in on himself and breathed the hasty reply, "Mountain troll, my Lady."

Nott snorted, shook his head, and continued trying to eat, powering through the aftershocks of all the _crucios_ he'd endured on the hilltop half a day prior.

"Mmm," Hermione hummed knowingly and took a bite from her toast. She chewed…and she chewed…and she chewed for a time that was much longer than necessary; then she swallowed. "Lucky you all are, then. Truly. I remember the last time I fought and disabled a mountain troll." She took another bite of bread. "I was twelve."

Tom's smile spread from ear to ear.


	31. Chapter 30 - Provenance (Book II)

**30 – Provenance**

November 1943

He watched as the Aurors swept the area, looking for definitive signs of the mountain troll that had committed the attack.

He watched as they toiled over answers as to what this downed branch or that one could have meant.

He watched them path over and over and over the scene of the murder, all with one very prominent thought circulating through his head: _I hope the department's competency has improved since our last meeting._

As Albus Dumbledore watched the head Auror cross over the patch of snow covered ground that, to him, emanated a pulse pounding malicious essence that had nothing to do with trolls and everything to do with very dark magic, he seriously doubted it.

Stoically, he stood. His arms remained relaxed, one hand loosely clasping the wrist of the opposite one behind his back. To onlookers, he appeared simply patient and dutiful, similar to the other professors who had been asked to accompany the Aurors to the hilltop.

There they all stood, called upon by Headmaster Dippet to assist in confirming details of the students' stories that had been provided; meanwhile, the Headmaster relayed the message to the school that the day would be spent in observance and mourning, sans classes.

There, _Dumbledore_ stood: tall and silent and still, internally weighing his options.

Though there was no surface evidence that there had been foul play involved, Albus sensed a terrible, deeply seated thrumming in the earth that resonated in his bones. He quietly surveyed his comrades to see if any others seemed to notice. To his dismay, none of them did. And the specialists in these dark magicks? They appeared just as clueless.

He understood why, of course, though it frustrated him.

The traces he felt were of long forbidden magic. Dark, ancient blood magic hummed in the air and knocked against his own with a familiarity that he hadn't felt since he'd parted ways with Gellert. Dumbledore knew that it hadn't been Gellert, however, that had a hand in this. No, it was someone else. It had to have been someone _close_, as well, if all the cumbersome concealment wards activated across the hilltop were anything to go by.

Albus' contempt for the Aurors present returned in a flash at the very thought that they couldn't even detect _those_.

It was all of this, of course, that made him continue to debate his options.

He, a professor of the most esteemed Hogwarts, as well as one of Dippet's closest friends, couldn't very well go pointing out that he felt the itching of ancient blood magic scratching at his skin, now could he? It wasn't exactly the sort of knowledge one admitted to having. He debated dissolving the wards, or attempting to. From what he could feel, they seemed quite intricate and well made. Since he knew that would lead to follow up questioning as to how on earth he knew such things were there in the first place, however, he continued to do nothing.

_No. _

A student had died because of something or some_one_ close. He couldn't just do _nothing._

_But,_ Dumbledore mused internally, _if I say the wrong thing at the wrong time, I would be at even more of a disadvantage. I cannot sacrifice my position._

And so Albus Dumbledore continued to stand quietly, a silent surveyor as the Aurors worked.

He was unsure how much time had passed when the team's lead investigator approached him, but he'd heard the man's resigned footsteps crunching though the snow towards him from several metres away.

"We're done here, Professor."

Albus turned his attention to the shorter man clad in the highest ranking robes amongst the Ministry folk present and looked surprised. He wished he were surprised. "Already?"

The wizard nodded, swiping a monogrammed kerchief across his forehead before tucking it back into his pocket. "Already?" he scoffed. "We've been out here for hours and we've found nothing."

"Nothing?" Albus echoed, the barest hint of disdain hardening his eyes for just a moment before disappearing into an expression that displayed nothing but disappointment and passivity.

The Auror missed it completely and nodded. "Nothing to indicate foul play, in any case. The students' stories check out; all evidence points towards rogue mountain troll. This one will be passed on to the Department of Magical Creatures."

The edges of Albus' mouth twitched down, his eyes drifting back to the spot where he felt the angry remnants of blood magic seeping up through the soil and snow. Visually, it lasted only a second, but of all things for the investigator to notice, he caught this.

"Something wrong, Professor?"

Albus' eyebrows went up in genuine surprise this time, his stare coming back to the other man. _Merlin help him, he would take what he could get out of this lot._ "It just seems odd," he remarked idly. "It is not yet the proper season for a troll attack, after all. Even for a rogue…they should not be out and active until the first thaw of spring at the earliest." Albus smiled a kind, but tight smile, as though he were simply so mentally and emotionally put out over the whole ordeal and gazed into the distance once more even as he saw a creeping doubt inching its way into the man's face. "But I am certain you've already ventured down that path of thought. You always were particularly good in the Studies of Magical Creatures as I recall, Aeryn—_pardon_—_Auror _Diggory." He let out a breathy chuckle, chastising himself quietly. "Forgive me, these events have been trying and perhaps I am merely too tightly wound after the fact."

Auror Diggory straightened and cast his gaze out in the same direction Albus' had drifted to once more. He adjusted the lapels of his robes to hide the burgeoning flush of skin at his error and continued conversationally. "It's difficult if you're not around it much." His brows furrowed as the information he'd not considered began circulating through his head. "Truthfully, it's difficult if you _are _around it. And it's worse, still, when it's children."

Albus nodded and released a long, heavy sigh, making movements to head back towards the castle. "I will advise the Headmaster of the news before you meet with him for the update. I fear that his reaction will be far less passive. You know how passionately he cares for the children, after all."

"Professor," Diggory called out.

Dumbledore paused, turning slowly to fix him with his familiar, kind stare.

"Professor," Auror Diggory repeated, seeming to shrink in on himself a tad. He cleared his throat. "If you wouldn't mind speaking to the Headmaster instead about meeting with the students once more. The ones that were at Hogsmeade this weekend, and particularly the friends of the boy. I think, to be safe, I should check out a few more details from the sources before we pass this case on. As soon as possible!"

Albus' expression shifted to one of conservative protest. "Now, Aeryn, don't you think they've been through enough? To ask young Master Avery's friends to relive the trauma again so soon, and to recall it to a group of witches and wizards they've never before seen in their lives—"

The color in Auror Diggory's neck deepened and crept more swiftly into his face. He quickly waved a hand. "No, of course, you're right. But," his tongue came out to whet his lips, buying a few seconds to save face, "We owe it to the boy's family to be thorough. If there is even a speck of doubt that it was anything but a creature, we need to investigate further. If it were _my_ boy and someone tried to tell me it'd been a wild animal and it had been a renegade wizard instead—" He let the implication hang in the air between them before continuing. "—not to mention all the people that could be at risk!"

Albus shook his head. "I fear the past several hours have been traumatic enough, Master Diggory." The man looked ready to rebut, but Albus just held up one wrinkled, long fingered hand. "I agree with you. We must be thorough…however, they must be allowed a day of mourning in the wake of this terrible tragedy. If you would like, I can speak with Headmaster Dippet to authorize some additional questioning with the children to be conducted by selected faculty." Diggory opened his mouth once more but Albus' presence once again silenced his protest. "If we're to make any possible headway, this must be handled only by people they know and trust."

Auror Diggory mulled over the proposal. He ran his tongue over his teeth and he was silent for a long stretch of seconds. Eventually, he nodded – just once, sharply – and said, "Day after tomorrow, we should begin questioning. If it _was_ anything or any_one_ else, we need to make sure the trail hasn't gone cold."

Albus Dumbledore rewarded Auror Aeryn Diggory with a warm, proud smile, one that relaxed the odd tightness in the man's shoulders in the way only a former mentor could. "I will speak with the Headmaster and make the arrangements."

_One day._

He could work with one day.

As Auror Diggory waved his team and the other professors in to inform them of their next actions, Albus began making his way back to the castle. All the while, he thought on which students he would oversee the questioning for, though two in specific had already, immediately, come to mind.

. . . . .

The Ravenclaw girls' dorm room was unnaturally quiet that mid-morning for a day with cancelled classes.

Hermione suspected that her roommates had developed a keen sense of self-preservation when dealing with all things related to her for fear of what happened to those who did not tread lightly.

"Good," she murmured to herself, "they're learning. Give it to Ravenclaws for at least being quick about it." It was just as well because she felt horribly exhausted from the past day's events still.

Hermione had felt worlds better dozing and recovering somewhat in The Room with Tom after he and Abraxas had worked to mend her, yet a persistent, creeping illness had begun again that morning and by the time they'd finished breakfast, she'd felt as though she'd been run over by the Knight Bus several times. She sprawled on her bed on her side, a veritable fort of pillows magicked into existence and tucked up around her as though their fluffy goodness could ease the deep ache that throbbed through her limbs. This tiredness and physical exhaustion had been the cause of her vulnerability when Tom's minions had chosen to attack and, for a scant few hours afterwards, she'd felt so much better, so rejuvenated. She had hopes that their pitiful, but welcome, healing spells would chase it all away, but was disappointed to find it returning as soon as their magic left her system. Hermione longed for just another taste of their magic to stave off the pain another day—another _half_ of a day, even.

Hermione snorted at such a desperate thought. "Might as bloody well peg me for an addict, fiending for their magic." She got a good couple of chuckles in before something cold solidified in her gut at the notion.

Hurriedly, she clambered free from her pillows, stumbling and tripping over herself and the sharp stabs of pain jabbing into her joints with the movement. Being upright sent her head spinning, but she trudged through the wash of nausea to fumble for her wand and gritted out a summoning call towards her satchel. Several books came flying free of the leather confines to scatter before her on the edge of the mattress. Hermione mumbled something to herself as she flipped an assortment of books this way and that, scrounging for a specific title. Thick ones, thin ones, ratty, old, and new, they were swiftly sorted until she snatched one up that she'd read cover to cover during the summer before her third year: _Currents of Time: The Traveler's Handbook__**. **_

The manual had been required reading well before she'd ever been allowed to take on the massive responsibility of handling a Time Turner on the regular. Since beginning her journey to the past, the book had quickly become a bible of sorts and, if the nagging drop in her stomach was any indication, there was something very familiar afoot.

It took her a few minutes to find it with all her frantic page flipping, but when she did, Hermione let out a long hiss of a curse. "Buggering _fuck._"

It was obvious, of course. At least now, what with the answer staring her in the face. Hermione felt as though she should have realized it sooner, should have been able to place it much earlier than just then, but between nearly being killed by a gaggle of pillocks, dealing with a mood swinging teenage sociopath, having multiple versions of her own voice nattering at her from inside her skull, not to mention the unexpected emotional upheaval of dealing so intimately with Tom-bloody-Riddle…she was a bit peaked.

"Traveler's sickness," Hermione murmured in disbelief. There was the slightest tremble to her hand as she teetered weakly to flop once more on the edge of her bed. She ignored the flash of pain that flared at the jostling and persisted through the unpleasant chaser of fatigue. "Bloody…brilliant."

'_Traveler's Sickness.'_

Hermione's eyes scanned the passage.

'_Cited only in travelers that dabbled in the passage of time with Time Turners predating precautionary charms that limited the past-to-present timespan to certified safety regulation marks of five or fewer hours. Travelers would be noted as experiencing massive and potentially fatal illness, seen to manifest rapidly the longer an individual would be apart from their origin time without an anchor._

_Researchers theorize that, much like a living being, the dynamic timeline aggressively purges the foreign object from its stream until all traces of the creature have been dissolved from existence in the incorrect era. Without an anchor, the traveler would continue to show signs of deterioration and decay until all memory of its presence – physical and mental – will be wiped and the timeline could continue on, unbothered.+_

_+Active testing of this theory defunded as of 1872.'_

"Bloody fucking _brilliant,_" she breathed angrily, snapping the book shut and chucking it away. Her traveler's guide smacked loudly into her haphazardly stacked tiers of books that, in turn, managed to knock her bag off the bed. With a resounding thud, Hermione heard a single small book fall free somewhere very close to her socked feet and her eyes clenched shut.

She didn't need to see it to know which it was.

She felt its heartbeat thumping faintly in the air between them.

She could practically smell the tantalizing scent of dark magic and crisp ozone wafting off the pages.

"Anchor…" Hermione hissed, reopening her eyes to stare at the innocent, worn cover of her horcrux. The ghoulish woman's essence that had crawled free from its pages clad in her old 1920s Ministry robes sparked in Hermione's memory. "Is that what you are?"

Her mind drifted to the hints of orders she should have recalled being told, information that should have been there, the glimpses of events that she should have been able to remember since being transported there by her Elder self. There was possession in those pages, and something else her young mind wasn't meant to see; she'd come to realize that the more she'd distanced herself from the blasted thing.

The longer its magic wasn't coursing through her the more she became exhausted. Unfortunately, the longer she was without it, the easier it was to think.

"Bloody…_bitch,_" she practically snarled and could have sworn she heard the faint cackles echoing in her ears. Narrowing her eyes, Hermione openly glared at her book and came shakily to her feet. "I didn't come this far to be enslaved by _you_ too."

The book, unsurprisingly, did not respond.

"You could have just told me what needed to be done instead of filling my head with all these—" A disgruntled sort of whimper escaped her as her fingers dug at her temples and shook off a tingling chill with a disjointed twitch. "—all this rubbish!"

Another growl and a toppling of a different, unimpressive stack of books punctuated the air.

"You _**won't**_ poison my head. Anchor or no—my mind is my own! I belong to no one!" Hermione full on snarled at the quiet little book with her tantrum. Tears threatened to spill from the corners of her eyes from the conflict at being so tired and weak and knowing now the root of the problem yet being unwilling to endure that haze of helplessness once more.

The irony of being kept alive by the horcrux only to waste away by the sheer force of time's will stuck in her craw and she reared back and gave her bedside table a good, swift kick.

"_AH!"_ Hermione shouted, fell back onto her mattress, and coddled her foot through the throbbing waves of pain.

And, with the sight of crimson tinting her sock, Hermione had yet another awful moment of thought that sobered her immediately: _The horcrux shouldn't allow this._

She flexed her foot and felt the telltale sting of broken skin, felt the sticky wetness that squished between her toes where the corner of the bedside table had taken a chunk of her in her recklessness. Hermione brought up the hand that still held faint pink markings from the healing scars that the gouged rune left in its wake and found herself frowning deeply.

_It shouldn't allow…have allowed…any of this._

There was something wrong.

There was something wrong and, for the first time since she'd come to this foreign time, Hermione felt a wash of very visceral fear.

A startlingly loud and sharp set of knocks jostled Hermione from her thoughts.

Hermione blinked, confused at what had stirred her until they came again.

Once she pinpointed the sound to the Ravenclaw girl's dorm room door, she sprung to her feet as best she could, hissing in pain at the sharp sting of open, bleeding skin. Hastily, she attempted to make herself as presentable as possible, knocking her questionable tomes onto the floor and shoving them beneath the skirt of her bed and clear from any possible view.

"Come in!"

The door creaked open with much hesitation and a small, ginger haired head poked through the gap. Her skin was pale and sallow, beads of sweat visible from even that much of a distance with a few droplets clinging here and there to some errant fiery wisps of bangs. The girl's eyes were darting around the room, attempting to find its sole occupant in an expedient manner.

It was about the time the girl laid eyes on her that Hermione asked, "Are you alright?"

The girl jumped, blue eyes huge, her spine going stock straight even though she insisted on half hiding behind the door. "FINE!" At Hermione's startled, questioning look, she stammered, "F-f-fine. I'm fine. Nothing's wrong."

Hermione blinked oddly at her and more oddly at the way the young girl – _she had to have been in her second, maybe third year, only _– was staring at her as though she were some great beast of legend. "Right…can I—" The girl flinched when Hermione made to hobble around her bed to get a better conversational view than from behind a four poster. "…can I help you, then?"

"A-another of the girls—she wanted me to let you know there's a 'Tom Riddle' at the knocker for you. Th-that's all!" She swallowed and looked very much as though she would like to hide.

Hermione felt a headache building at the back of her eyes the longer the little waif of a thing stared and trembled in her doorway. Sparing a glance down towards her bed to the space beneath where she knew her horcrux was thumping like some macabre heart, her frown returned.

"Tell him I will be down in a few moments."

. . . . .

Tom silently flipped a page of the large tome he was currently entertaining. His eyes scanned over the contents of the book before he flipped another page, seemingly oblivious to the small huffs of exertion coming from the far end of one of his and Hermione's old nooks.

"As unnecessary as the break is, it is fortuitous in the way that it will allow us to catch up on all the work that has been left in waiting since our unfortunate hiatus."

With a derisive snort, Hermione reappeared, tall stack of tomes in hand. She set the heavy books down silently in a way only the most studious tenant of Madam Pince's library could do and spoke openly and rather indignantly on the topic. "The speech this morning was a dry, poorly informed eulogy and a momentous waste of breath—truly befitting to its subject matter. And," she added with a pointed look in Tom's direction, "our hiatus, while indeed unfortunate, was preventable. To avoid such interruptions in the future, I have drafted this."

Tom's attention shifted from his book to Hermione with interest as she drew her wand from her side and flicked it with a silent command at her bag. A thick roll of parchment came whizzing from between the folds to snap into her hand and, as soon as it made contact with her palm, she unfurled it for his inspection. He quirked an eyebrow at her but, at seeing her resolute stance and expectant stare, he let his eyes wander back to the parchment.

Before reading it, Tom could already feel the magic humming from the paper, and upon reading it he found the script that met his gaze was elegant in both penmanship and prose. Within those gentle, flowing loops and curls of ink in a hand that he'd come to recognize, Tom scanned the text, trying very much to understand what it was that she was showing him. It took him a few passes to really, _truly_, come to terms with what she had written and, when he did, he was filled with furious indignation.

_A contract._

The witch had written out a _contract_ detailing, in full, what their current and future arrangements would entail in accordance with the verbal agreement that they had _already_ made before.

What's more, she apparently expected him to _sign_ it!

And, if the magical static vibrating off of the parchment was any indication, there were many, _many_ bits and pieces of magical maliciousness woven into the thing, implying that there would be notable consequences to any signing parties that were to break said agreement.

Tom's body had gone rigid.

Ever since they had returned to Hogwarts that year and he'd seen her quietly scheming, delectably clever, and deceptively tame persona walking the halls without him—thanks to his bloody brilliant decision to cut ties—he had thought of her. So many hours of silent, private yearning for the conversation and wit that tickled him in ways he hadn't thought possible. Dozens of flashes of visions of their disjointed futures together stoked the flames of his interest. They all meshed and melded, forming a padlock of certainty that solidly secured his desire to keep her safe to his will and resolve.

_Did she truly believe that a contract was necessary to stay his hand?_

The very insulting implication made his neck hot with his growing aggravation that his very solemn and unwavering word was being questioned.

He could have strangled her in those moments.

Tom's mouth twitched towards a grimace at the impulse.

Almost_._

"When was it, _exactly_, that you found time to draft such an eloquently penned, insultingly worded contract? Last night after we parted ways—after I spent much of the evening looking after you—or this morning before breakfast where you were undoubtedly rejuvenated thanks to my efforts?"

"A bit of a column A, some of column B," Hermione replied blandly. "And if you're seriously inquiring, it has been in the works ever since you so rudely cast our entire arrangement aside upon returning for this term." At his expression she scoffed again. "Forgotten about that bit, perhaps? Well, that and several recent events inspired me to hastily update and complete the contract for your review before the sun set and rose again and you'd decided, once again, to say 'sod it' to our deal."

"So you saw fit to add some jinxes and hexes as well?" He snapped his book shut, practically gnashing his teeth as he rose to glare down at her.

Hermione quirked a brow, following his movements with her eyes alone. "Don't flatter yourself, Tom, thinking that you're special. You're not the first liar I've dealt with regarding such important matters. Those were added from the start—practically came with the parchment, in fact."

Vibrating with outrage, Tom managed a carefully hissed whisper. "I had thought this matter to be resolved. Is _my_ _word_ suddenly no longer adequate for your tastes, Hermione? "

Hermione tensed briefly at the sound of her name from his lips but turned to face him full on, gave him a cool, steady look and replied, unshaken. "It would be quite palatable if it weren't already tainted. Initially, you gave me your word that we would be partners in our endeavors yet shortly thereafter – mere _months_ later – you then gave me your word that we would, in fact, _not_ be anything of the sort. _Now_, you assure me that you were mistaken and would like to fully reinstate our original arrangement. I'm sure that you can see why one might be just a touch confused." Her hair frizzed a bit at the recollection of the past months and her gaze hardened considerably. "And, while I appreciate you standing in acceptance of your mistake, Tom, I, for one, would like to point out that I am NOT a bloody idiot!"

Tom puffed up at the more condescending pieces of her diatribe and sent a scathing look her way. "How _dare_ you insinuate that I am incapable of keeping to my vows."

Hermione wandlessly willed the contract to roll itself back up, moving forward to boldly threaten Tom's space bubble with a narrowed glare and her large frizz of hair. "Pardon _me_ if I don't feel terribly inclined to end up on the receiving end of another murder attempt thanks to your next passing fancy!"

He hissed, "I did NOT order that! They acted on their own—"

"Because the lack of control of peons with power but no brains is supposed to make me feel _better_, is it? What _he_ tried to do to me—"

Their relatively moderate argument to that point was cut off by a terrible, feral sound that rumbled free of Tom Riddle's throat as he leaned closer, his face coming ever closer to hers. Tom's anger was palpable yet fixed on some distant thing only he seemed able to see. It quickly became a steady, thrumming force, his magic skirting dangerously along the edge of control.

The pulsing of his magic thudded in deep resonant waves that her body recognized in ways her conscious mind didn't wholly understand; Hermione suppressed a not unpleasant shiver at the lick of his energy sparking over her skin. She assured herself that it had nothing to do with the suddenly murderous look in Tom's gaze that was not at all directed towards her. A murderous gaze that she'd seen hints of before when she'd briefly taunted him with Lawrence, one she imagined had been plastered upon his face during the vision he shared with her of Avery's fate.

"What he _tried_ to do was the very last thing he did in his miserable little life aside from beg." One of his hands came up towards her face as if to cup it and Hermione jerked away at the sudden movement. The hard press of her wand in the side of his neck snapped him from his momentary loss of self and Tom blinked away the red that had crept into his vision, his hand dropping to his side in a clenched fist. "Shall I show you again, Hermione? Is that what you desire?"

There was such a strange, wild look to Tom in those moments that managed to somehow both be aggressive and pleading. His presence loomed so large in that scant physical space between them, yet there was an unmistakable tremble to his essence. That tremble made her recall the quick flicker of emotion in his face when she'd asked what had brought him to her yesterday. What had carried his feet so quickly and spurred such vengeance in the man that wouldn't give her the time of day only hours before? What was this tremble and why did it seem married to the question he so avidly avoided?

An uncomfortable, hollow ache bloomed in her chest at the recollection. It was as if some phantom pain were burrowing down into her gut and seeping out into her limbs, thumping in time with her heartbeat.

"Hermione?"

Hermione straightened at her name, her wand digging more sharply into his neck, though he just grunted and placed his hands up, palms forward as if to placate her. Though he looked substantially less murderous, Tom was still looking—staring—expectantly.

_What had he asked?_

Hermione's brow furrowed, searching for what they'd been arguing about this time until she recalled.

_Oh…yes_.

To his first question: _yes_.

A part of her wanted, _desperately_, to see that memory again. A part of her wished to screen it over, and over, and over, and over again…to see the punishment, a _proper_ punishment, for men like that be carried out. The memory of so much meat that Avery had become. She wanted to savor it. She wanted to keep it in a neat little bottle so she could drag it out of the cupboard and drop it into a pensieve and indulge repeatedly as though it were her favorite show on the telly.

To his second question—

_-sane people don't __**want**__ to see these sorts of things, Hermione._

"_No_," she gasped out after too long a pause that cost her so much to say. She removed her wand from his throat, watching Tom's brows go up in question. "What I _desire_, Tom, is your guarantee that your idiot followers will not interfere with me again. No more nonsense, no more schemes, no more bloody attempts on my _life_—"

"It wouldn't have worked." The words came out awkwardly and in a rush before Tom even realized.

"_What?"_

. . .

Tom saw her eyes glittering with life, cheeks red and flushed, neck hot with her ire towards him, and found himself admiring the color to her face despite himself. From the visceral detail of his vision, to coming upon her so battered in the field, ready to burn them all away in a blood fueled Fiendfyre, Tom knew the taunting voice had been a disembodied warning. He knew not nearly enough about Time Travel, but he understood the signs once they'd all fallen into place. He already knew the answer to his question but he felt himself asking anyway.

"Their fool plan," Tom began, "you've already protection in place to ward against such things. Or am I to pretend your knowledge of horcruxes is just theoretical?"

Hermione's expression faltered.

Tom watched a series of emotions flash through her eyes, some of them particularly revealing.

There was one in particular whose presence told everything he needed to know.

_She doesn't._

Tom was not sure when it had truly happened, when it was that he'd stopped delighting in this woman's fear and had taken to loathing it instead.

"A compromise, perhaps?" Tom spoke suddenly, voice barely wavering as though the air between them wasn't tight with sudden, unexplained urgency.

Her eyes were large and verging on the edge of panic but she was doing surprisingly well at keeping it at bay. "Wh-what is your proposal?"

In a life he couldn't recall, she'd been taken from him by force.

In the life he knew, she'd nearly been stolen from him again.

_When had Persephone—Hermione—become so firmly __his__ in his mind?_

Tom's breath hitched and his voice tightened and spiked in pitch, rising for just a moment before he leveled it again. "Your request for protection is reasonable," he said in as much of an acquiescent tone as he was capable of. His eyes flicked over her face and he shoved lingering and unpleasant thoughts away. "You shall have your contract, but it shall not be me that you bind in service." Slowly, deliberately, Tom extracted his wand from his pocket. When she made to raise her wand once more, he held up his free hand in surrender and said, "Just altering a few items on the contract."

Warily, Hermione allowed him to continue, a spell clearly at the ready should he do any more than that. With a few swishes and silent incantations, Tom had floated the parchment from her hand to the space beside them and reworked terms and verbiage on the heavily enchanted sheet. Once satisfied, Tom made a show of storing his wand.

With narrowed eyes, Hermione removed her attention from Tom to look at what he'd done. She scanned the document quickly, her brows lessening from their harsh furrow and raising in surprise instead. "You are giving them to me?"

Tom spoke quietly between them with a rather serious timbre, "On my word, we are partners—_equals_—as your initial request so stated. As my partner, you face a decidedly dangerous role when we accomplish what we aim to do." He allowed himself to indulge in all the wheels and cogs he could see turning in her head and on her face—rubbish as she was at hiding it all. "You desire protection and you shall have it."

. . .

Hermione read and reread the lines, she could feel the extra kick that he'd given to some of the existing hexes that saturated the length of the contract, all this and she still managed to be caught off guard by the gesture. "I—I hardly think that your minions will agree to any, much less all of these terms. Especially knowing what they know—" Tom's head cocked to the side in question so she clarified somewhat wanly. "—about my blood."

At the mention of blood, Tom's expression darkened and his voice took on a note of finality and venom. "Then we shall have a sizable more number of days of mourning ahead of us."

Hermione found that Tom was close, much closer than she would have sworn he was just seconds ago. The look he fixed on her made her heart thud in her ears. Crimson had bled into his irises, the fierceness of them held nothing but the most solemn of promises of pain to those that tested him. She'd seen this before, from the Voldemort of her time. It sent another wave of chills down her spine and her mouth felt dry. "And just what good would these fools be to me?"

His lips curled up in a terrible sort of smile, a dark humor bleeding into it as he continued to admire her fire. "After their performance on the hill, I agree that they require_ much_ in the way of teaching, still. It has been my experience that you are very adept at teaching the sorts of…_lessons_ that I surmise they need."

A look of understanding began to blossom on Hermione's face. "An apology." It was more a statement than question.

_Minions—HIS minions that had helped to enact the horrible future that would await so many. Tom Riddle's most dedicated supporters who had, looking back, done so much to fund the initial bricks and mortar of what would one day be a terrible, terrible reign that would forever warp the world._

_And they were to be hers._

_Hers to groom, to instruct, to command…to punish._

_**Hers.**_

The temptation to slaughter Rophelius Lestrange outright was so close she could taste it. If it wouldn't have sent everything into a massive, cocked up tailspin she would have bounded out just then to do the deed.

But it would have.

So she didn't.

Although, it didn't stop her from wetting her lips.

Tom's eyes glinted, sensing victory.

"A gift," he sidestepped smoothly and, finally unable to stifle the urge, he raised his hand to her cheek once more, inwardly preening when Hermione did not flinch nor back away. "My Lady shall have her Knights."

The desire to press into the heat of his palm tugged at her, but Hermione resisted with some degree of difficulty. "It is an unacceptable trade," she murmured, too breathlessly for her tastes. At his raised brow, she added, "And I do not belong to you."

Something in her expression made Tom hungry. Where he should have been put out and irate that she downplayed his gesture so magnificently, he instead found a smile curling back his lips at a familiar darkness edging into her gaze. "What else do you require?"

Hermione's hand stroked up along his that held her cheek, her fingers trailing lightly between his own. She did allow herself the slight comfort of leaning into his touch then, stroking his skin once more before settling it over the dark, angular gem that sat atop the gold band he wore on his second finger. "I would hold onto this for safekeeping until I create another '_failsafe_.'"

. . .

Tom felt as though he should have been more surprised than he was.

A quick glance into her stare told him that she knew precisely what that ring on his finger was and it was times like this that he remembered she had come to him from the future. Perhaps, the only reason she'd not noted it sooner was that he'd kept her at such a distance for so many days; she'd wasted no time in picking him utterly apart since they'd reunited.

_My, is she quick._

Tom wanted to be angry, to be furious, but—as a sure shock to him—all he felt was a grudging respect solidifying itself in the face of that clever, lopsided smirk she was now bestowing upon him.

His gut reaction was to deny her, of course.

What foolishness would have to overcome him to give such a woman a literal piece of his soul for safekeeping? A woman who, according to her, knew how to destroy an indestructible object.

The vision of her older self splayed and bleeding out upon his lap, crimson spray and viscera painting his trousers and the tiles beneath them in a gruesome swathe of color flashed through his brain. Accompanying it was the surge of pain and loss and fury that had come with it the first time.

_What foolishness indeed?_

. . .

There was a lengthy pause between them, a lull of silence where Hermione surely thought Tom was about to explode. She gripped her wand in her free hand, ready for whatever he would do in light of her last minute piece of desperate bargaining on a hunch.

What she did not expect, however, was the slow, calculated removal from his hand from her face, followed by his ring from his finger.

Tom held his family ring out, inches from her nose. "Tit for tat."

Hermione's smirk drooped, eyes narrowed and shifting between the outstretched ring, his face, and back again as if attempting to spot the trick. When more silence fell and he'd not yet tried to ignite her for merely suggesting such a thing, Hermione reached out carefully to take it. She pulled it mostly from his grip when his fingers tightened around the object just another moment, drawing her eyes back to his face.

"I should like to be there, for your newest creation," Tom said.

The low rumble of his voice was intimate in their shared study space and it jostled free the memory of what had happened after she'd assisted in creating his first horcrux—what _they_ had done.

A sudden wash of heat flooded her face.

He must have noticed because Tom appeared stunned for a handful of seconds as well, his own neck flushing with color. "To expedite the return of my ring, of course." It was the most stiff and ineloquent thing he'd said in quite some time.

"O-of course."

There was a soft, yet pronounced clearing of a throat that came from somewhere near the entrance of their study nook that cut through the private familiarity the couple had been patronizing until then.

Tom's wand was outstretched first, his form moving to partially block Hermione's a mere half second before, she too, had her wand aimed in the direction of what they swiftly discovered was one of Tom's minions.

The boy held both his hands up and bowed his head, setting his eyes to the ground. "Forgive me for the intrusion," he spoke hastily. "But an urgent matter begs your attention."

Tom sneered at him, any humor or warmth utterly drained from him at once. "We're busy."

The boy bowed lower. "I'm sorry, sir, but it is truly urgent and—beg your pardons—requires _both_ of your attentions."


	32. Chapter 31 - The Order (Book II)

**31 – The Order**

November 1943

Tom's minion—_Rosier, _Hermione recalled—led the three of them outside with haste in an awkward silence. She wanted to question why they weren't simply using The Room of Requirement for whatever meeting they deemed so important, but as soon as they set foot beyond the threshold of the library she understood.

Students were active and bustling in and around the school grounds due to classes being cancelled that day. The foot traffic throughout the halls was nearly as stifling as it was during normal changes between periods. She frowned at the density of students; something about the suffocating press of bodies that were laughing and cavorting in the wake of death was unsettling, even though she'd shed no tears over Avery's loss.

Rosier continued leading them, weaving and ducking around other students with an occasional glance over his shoulder to be sure they followed. As the crowd thinned, the pair of them were led from the castle walls to the courtyards, then further on, away from students, away from faculty, away from prying eyes and listening ears.

A terrible sense of déjà vu curdled Hermione's insides.

She felt the palms of her hands begin to sweat but, before she could call foul on Rosier's plight, the ring—_Tom's ring—_that hung on a conjured chain and draped around her neck heated against her skin. The magic of the dark object pulsed and vibrated, making the tiny hairs at the back of her neck stand on end, and she felt Tom's hand press into the small of her back, his fingers curling around her waist in a way that stilled her.

"Where are you taking us?"

Tom's voice startled her, somehow closer than she expected it to be. It resonated in her skull and when she chanced a look at him, he was at her back, straightened to his full height with a stern and scathing look fixed on Rosier as all their footsteps wound down to a stop.

"I-I—" Rosier stammered, voice dropping off sharply at Tom's continued glare.

"Perhaps another abandoned hilltop?" The venomous sarcasm leaked from between Hermione's teeth before she could help herself, though she cared little about stifling it.

Rosier's eyes went wide at that, appearing to somehow never have considered the implications. The look he turned back towards Tom was akin to a deer in headlights. "N-no, sir—_My Lord_—" He took a risk at formalities in public, it seemed, in preservation of his hide. "—I would never."

Though her response was readied, it was unnecessary.

"And yet…you did." Tom's voice exhibited a very metered cadence, his tone factual with a hint of interest, humor, and an exuberant number of promises for pain lurking behind each simply stated syllable.

The sound of it draped around Hermione's shoulders in a pleasant embrace. She felt a simpering sigh bubbling in her throat and pushing against the backs of her teeth; she stifled it with fervor.

Uncomfortable with how her heart had sped and began to thump against her ribcage at his posturing, Hermione cleared her throat. "Tom," she pulled him from his glare, and the feeling of his fingers tightening at her waist did nothing to assuage the flutter in her breast. "Surely, they can't be that daft?" She hummed the half-statement, half-question at him in mild amusement.

Tom's eyes narrowed and fixed more firmly onto Rosier who shrunk back in response. "One would like to _think_ that."

"_Tom,"_ Hermione said again, this time resting a placating hand to his chest. Visibly surprised by the touch, Tom finally turned his full attention on her then. To her credit, she met his stare with a small, cockeyed smirk. "There'll be time for that if he's lying."

His expression shifted. An imperceptible shift, perhaps, to those unfamiliar with Tom, but to Hermione it was like watching night turn to day. One moment, he was stony faced yet notably murderous; the next, he was smiling the sort of smile of the man she knew him to be—the one she knew he'd grow into. And although she knew one shouldn't be so proud of garnering that sort of smile from that sort of man, it felt as though the sun had risen and decided to flood her skin with its warmth.

Rosier turned his fearful look from Tom to Hermione, wide eyed and slack jawed at the entirely _NOT_ subtle implication.

"Valid point, Miss Callaghan."

Hermione almost flinched at the sound of her alias, as though she'd forgotten it.

"Rosier," Tom said as sternly as, though more cheerfully than, before. "Lead on."

. . . . .

It was shortly before midday by the time Tom and Hermione made it to the edge of one of the lesser used courtyards with Rosier. The air in the courtyard was crisp and cold, but no more snow had fallen in the brief time since her attack. Hermione frowned, having been unprepared to go outside in this unaccommodating weather, and muttered a warming charm to alleviate her discomfort. She cast a glance out across Tom's crew who had been waiting for the pair of them to arrive and was met with averted stares or stalwart glares that wavered between livid and terrified at her proximity to their young Dark Lord. Hermione would have been lying through her teeth if she'd said that the way they all squirmed at her presence didn't delight her greatly.

Tom, the picture of a perfect gentleman, produced a handkerchief from his pocket and transfigured it into a large woolen blanket. Attaching his own warming charm to the object, he snapped it once in a dramatic fluff and laid it out upon the snow covered grass near the tree where his followers had gathered. Hermione accepted his proffered hand—though still a bit skeptical at the blatant gesture—and sat. As she settled an intense wave of warmth emanated from the wool, washing over her as though the blanket were draped snugly about her shoulders. She watched with rapt interest as the snow along its edges melted away and made a mental note to ask him how he'd enhanced the charm, later.

"Now," Tom began in a tone insinuating he wasn't at all perturbed by the interruption of their research, though she knew he was,"what was such a thing of importance to drag us out on such a shite day like today?"

Any swagger and indignation that had permeated the air around Tom's minions evaporated. Hermione mused that it had more to do with the realization of how far removed from the notice of general passers-by they were at that edge of courtyard, tucked away on the far side of a copse of barren trees, rather than his blunt observation of the weather.

Tom offered them all a patronizing smile when none volunteered fast enough. "Mulciber," he said while casting his gaze out across the encroaching edge of woods.

Hermione's eyes slid to Frankfort Mulciber and watched the boy wither after merely being addressed. She imagined owning—_no, not owning, she was not a slaver like her masters before her—_she imagined _enlisting_ this one as one of hers. She imagined how he would be hard pressed to wither or even yield appropriately to _her_ calls or commands.

Then she imagined how much she would like to break him and the others of such arrogance.

_What had Tom named them in his proposal?_

She hadn't been aware they'd even had a proper name that far in the past, but of course they would have. Of course _Tom_ would have labeled them something fanciful and fantastic from day one. She'd only briefly looked over it, so surprised at the sizeable counter offer instead of her signing Tom Riddle into a binding promise to _not_ kill her, that she'd not committed it to memory. Hermione resisted the urge to draw the parchment from her bag then to reread their terms and came back to the present conversation at the sound of Tom's derisive snort.

"Another round of questioning?" Tom hummed, displeased. "With the professors? And did you gather who all would be involved in said questioning?"

There was a pause, silence hanging in the air just this side of _'too long'_ before Tarquin Nott replied, "The only one of concern is the questioning from Professor Dumbledore, my Lord. A little bird tells me that he may have been party to instigating it in the first place."

If Hermione hadn't recalled Tarquin from before the fall out with Tom had occurred, she would have remembered him for nothing more than the severe beating he'd taken in efforts to free her from the others in her weakened state. His speech remained altered, slurred a bit with the way he still sported injury that the others had been too inept to heal properly. She thought on the contract again.

_Punishments __**and**__ rewards would be hers to dole out…_

Tom did not respond immediately and Hermione looked up towards his face. His eyes were narrowed near to slits, arms folded across his chest, and the fine muscles in his neck and jaw were working so intensely that she could see them from where she remained seated.

"Interrogation." The sudden statement earned her a curious look from all present and she shrugged. "Best to call it what it is. There was a murder, and an investigation, and now we are to be _interrogated_. There are consequences to incompetence with regards to covering traces." She sent an obvious look towards Rosier, surmising him to be the weakest of the herd. "Flowery speech and subtleties don't make the truth any less cumbersome."

"Perhaps, if there hadn't been such a large mess to clean up due to the forbidden magicks in the first place, it wouldn't have been an issue." It was the first time Rophelius had spoken since she and Tom arrived with Rosier. He had been practically vibrating with outrage at her presence and, once he finally opened his mouth, it earned a handful of white-faced looks of terror snapping towards him in shock; his stubborn lack of fear was obviously not shared amongst the rest of them. To his credit, there was a second's worth of hesitation after the words left him but, as though cementing his nerve in that moment, he steeled his expression.

Tom was right about their level of common sense. One would have thought his minions would know better.

Tom had already started moving, the beginnings of a snarl emerging on his face but she was quicker this time.

Hermione rose, a hand on Tom's arm, stilling his reaction and allowing her to hoist herself up. She moved forward between the two, looking Rophelius up and down the way one might appraise a pig for the slaughter. The air chilled impossibly further, dousing the warming charms both she and Tom cast. The melted snow crystallized and cracked into shards as something dark permeated the air.

She smiled.

Her voice was silky and low, slipping from her throat in a lover's caress. Hermione's words were honeyed acid. "I would be more than happy to illustrate _just_ how big of a mess I can create with those magicks if you'd like to continue, Lestrange."

Hermione was so focused on the fear that _finally_ started to edge into Rophelius' eyes that she failed to notice Tom's attention shift to her, or the way his brows perked up and his pupils dilated.

"It hasn't been announced officially, yet."

At once, Abraxas' voice cut through the tension. All eyes settled onto the pale, fair-haired boy who had a wash of red creeping into his neck and a tight look about him.

"Nott overheard they are due to start tomorrow."

Hermione blinked at him, her ire forgotten for the moment. His sudden, somewhat stunted, almost _curt_, delivery caught her off guard.

Abraxas appeared to realize that she was staring at him and she watched the tightness to his shoulders unfurl. His head bowed slightly, white-blond fringe hiding him from her. "A day to grieve gives us a day to corroborate."

"You honestly think we require that much time, Malfoy?" Tom's voice came, coldly, at her back.

Abraxas bowed further, eyes examining the shine of his shoes with great intensity. "No, Tom. No."

"…it may behoove us," Tarquin Nott butted in, coming to the aid of his friend, "to be somewhat overprepared, my Lord."

Tom turned an expectant eye towards him. "Speak your mind, Nott."

Nott dipped his head as well, albeit a bit more casually, reminding Hermione that they _were_ out in the open and anyone could see them if they ventured far enough out.

He shoved his hands in his pockets and leaned against the trunk of the nearest tree. "Professor Dumbledore will be participating in the interrogation." He chanced a glance at Hermione and nodded. "He will likely conduct all of ours, and certainly suspects Tom—and _you_, Miss Callaghan—of involvement, otherwise he wouldn't be in the mix."

Hermione straightened, beginning to understand the role this Nott played in Tom's small group.

Behind her, she felt Tom's displeasure. Though tucked behind an indifferent mask, she could sense it radiating off of him in waves. It made Hermione physically turn to him in question, the move so obvious and large in their secluded edge of land. Barely remembering the need for _some _subtlety, her hands came up as if to fuss with the knot of Tom's tie.

It was awkward, stilted, and fumbling. It was also anything _but_ subtle; it was as glaring as a sore thumb.

Tom quirked a brow at her and his minions all froze.

Though most of Tom's followers weren't fooled by the level and _kind_ of interest Tom Riddle had for this witch, to see something so…_domestic_. It was unheard of and certainly un_seen_.

Hermione soldiered on, resolutely attempting to tweak his already meticulously perfect knot while a becoming flush climbed into her cheeks. "_Veritaserum?_" she asked.

The corners of his eyes crinkled at the poorly reapplied attempt of delicacy. Her fingers were digging and picking at his tie, very royally mucking up what was already picture perfect and a most satisfying smirk spread slowly across his face.

Tarquin was blinking at her boldness.

Abraxas' pale complexion was swiftly turning red and blotchy.

Mulciber and Rosier were simply at a loss for words.

Even Rophelius was momentarily stunned.

Tom found the discomfort of his minions to be _**quite**_ pleasing.

He allowed her to continue but answered the question in place of his baffled follower. "Unlikely. The old coot has bollocks but is much more savvy than to leave material traces, _especially_ something so unique and controlled a substance as _veritaserum_. He'll more than likely be probing into our skulls, feeling so very superior to us that he won't think we'll notice or safeguard against such a thing."

"Brilliant." Hermione grimaced.

Hermione, having started with artificially focusing on the silk around his neck had moved onto genuine frustration with the thing and the results that all of her fussing had produced. Her brow was furrowed and she focused on the tiniest folds in his patterned tie, trying once more to get them to sit correctly in utmost accordance with the school's dress code. Tom felt her fingers flexing and could almost sense her desire to undo the whole thing and start over from scratch. He stopped her there.

"We shall meet this evening in The Room to discuss everything further. Nott is correct. We should prepare ourselves."

As he murmured the command, Tom nudged Hermione's hands away gently, taking one with one of his own. She tensed at the contact and he witnessed some minute struggle occur, evidenced only by the twitch in the set of her shoulders. It couldn't have been but a second and then she was fine, offering him a staged smile.

"Splendid. I would like to also discuss something with your men once we're through with that." Her smile turned into something real that made his breath catch. "Regarding our conversation in the library."

Tom found a grin had settled onto his face as well. "Of course." He glanced at them all before returning his eyes to her. "Gentlemen, wear your best tonight." Tom spared a thought for Lestrange's insolence in those scant few minutes of their gathering and the anticipation ignited something wonderful in his gut. "You are all dismissed."

Rophelius was the first to remove himself from their presence and all Tom could think was that he was _greatly_ looking forward to watching her work.

. . . . .

Though not filled with classes and studying, the hours of the day seemed to pass as though they were.

After meeting with Tom's followers in the courtyard, Hermione migrated with the group to the Great Hall for lunch. They did their public duty, appearing much more somber than any of them truly felt over the death of Avery – save for maybe Abraxas – and they put in the appropriate amount of solemn face time. Hermione had had every intention of returning to the library with Tom after eating, but her faltered step and near blackout coming away from the table decided her afternoon's plans for her.

Tom caught her as she stumbled, quickly and before the move had garnered too much attention. "Miss Callaghan," he murmured near her ear, an arm curled around her back and one hand steadying her at her elbow. "Please watch your step, the elves have been careless today it seems. The floors are laden with tracked snow and puddles."

Hermione came out from her moment of blackened vision to see Abraxas looking eying her with concern. She caught the other boys' curious stares out the corner of her eye as she turned to woozily address Tom. She moved a cold, clammy hand to rest over the one holding her up and the moment her icy fingers touched his skin, his neutral look twitched, the corner of his mouth tightening with the very flicker of something she thought she understood hedging into his gaze.

_No. Just a trick of the light._

Surely, she was just hallucinating. What she _thought_ she saw was certainly not an emotion that Tom Riddle expressed, no matter how fleeting.

Hermione opened her mouth to speak, to say something demurely clever and uphold her usual façade in front of Tom and his minions but, when she felt another tremor of weakness run through her, all that came out was: _"Take me to my tower."_ She was vaguely aware of how timid and worn she sounded and hated every scant second of it. Hermione made moves to save face but another look at Tom's expression silenced her.

_Fear._

This time, he was so very close and it seemed so very _clear_. A flicker of fear that seemed to be directed towards her—_for_ her—passed through his dark eyes.

"Shall I assist—"

"Don't concern yourself with Miss Callaghan, Malfoy," Tom snapped at the well-meaning, worried looking blond. "I've got her. You gentlemen enjoy your afternoon. We look forward to seeing you this evening."

Hermione witnessed easily the severity of his words in Tom's profile, the sheer presence and command he exuded from such a simple set of statements. She could feel that he'd broadened his stance at her back, felt his chest pushing flush against her shoulder blades. A part of her hissed a warning that she shouldn't find anything enticing about the way he marked his proverbial territory. Instead, she simply wondered if Tom realized at all how much he puffed and huffed and postured.

Her easy pondering was cut short by the sudden jerking feeling of her stomach trying to rearrange its contents and she worked to get her feet back under her without drawing notice while Tom hoisted her satchel over his shoulder. Mustering more energy than it surely should've taken to smile, she did just that, offering a thin-lipped parting gesture to the boys. Tom bore her weight without a stutter to his step from the Great Hall, all the way to the far end of the hallway, where he ducked them both into an alcove.

In a too familiar way within a too familiar nook, Tom steadied her against the alcove's back wall. She braced her arms on his shoulders and shut her eyes against the world spinning, grimacing when the darkness spun, too, behind her lids. Hermione felt just on the barest edge of sicking up all over Tom's front, when his warm hand cupped her cheek and, in a jarring fashion, the world stilled.

"You're freezing," Tom muttered, clearly displeased.

Heat emanated from his palm, something warmer than just his skin, something _magical_. It crept into her weary body, warming her temperature and filling her like water to a sponge. Rejuvenated somewhat, she cracked open her eyes and he was close, near enough she could feel his breath across her face.

"Come, we'll make our way to The Room—"

"My tower, Tom." Hermione shook her head. Tom looked about to protest and she insisted, "My tower…please."

Tom's mouth clamped shut.

She watched his nostrils flare and mused that even this funny doting side of Tom Riddle didn't care for people disobeying him. Hermione was certain he was going to haul her away to The Room anyway, but he nodded. Gathering her at his side as though they were simply walking arm in arm, he steered her wobbly kneed self all the way up to Ravenclaw tower.

Hermione wasn't sure if it was her imagination or not, but she could have sworn she felt minute pulses of magic coming from Tom as they walked. She would have guessed he was stealthily attempting more of his healing spells but, if he was, he was being _very _covert about it. Whatever it was, Hermione was relieved at the easing of the aches in her muscles and bones in his presence.

At the knocker, Hermione answered the riddle and Tom waited, looking into the common room beyond the threshold, ready to follow.

"Thank you for your help, Tom. I'm feeling much better, I can make it the rest of the way," Hermione said dismissively as she untangled herself and her things from his side and entered the room.

Tom's brows went up in surprise.

"Persephone," he began, pushing past the threshold after her, taking back her satchel. Casting a glance to either side of them to ensure they were alone, he hissed, "_Hermione_, I will be escorting you to your _room_."

Hermione blinked at him, somehow not having expected that. "And you'll, what? Elegantly descend down the stairs-turned-slide when you try to set foot on the girls' staircase?" His expression shifted to one of confusion, during which Hermione took back her bag once more.

"Why do your stairs turn into a _slide_?" By his look of befuddlement, that was the last thing he'd expected her to say.

Hermione paused, a thoughtful look of curiosity crossing her features, washing away the dull lethargy and pain that'd been occupying it moments before; it was the most she'd looked like herself in quite a while. "Actually, I'm not sure if the Ravenclaw ones do, but anytime a boy would try to ascend the girls' stairs at my old tower—"

"**_Which_ **boys have ascended your stairs?"

There was a sound there, something she was sure he didn't mean to let out, but it reminded her of the warning snorts of a bull.

"Wha—" Hermione blinked at his agitated expression, connected some points in her head, then proceeded to flush an unbecoming shade of pink. "Are you _daft? Other_ girls—" She let out a disgusted noise. "_Thank you_ for your assistance today," she said more insistently. "I will see you this evening."

Hermione got all of two steps before Tom's hand reached out to grasp her arm and stop her again.

"_Hermione."_

She looked back, levelling an even stare on where he gripped her bicep before drawing it up to meet his eyes. "Tom—" Her tone signaled warning.

Tom's fingers lessened their pressure at her arm but his hand lingered as his jaw mimed out words he was considering. The struggle upon his face was almost comical and she readied herself to dismiss him again when he swallowed and finally spoke.

"To your question, at the Masquerade—"

_That_ caught her off guard. _No._ She really didn't want to think about _**that**_ again. "I misspoke. I'd—I was referring to—"

"What I said to you, after—" He said the next quickly before his resolve failed him, "I was mistaken. I did—I _do._"

The simple set of words stole her breath away and she swore she'd never heard her heart beat so loudly in her ears before.

Hermione knew she needed to reply to keep up their air of professionalism stating everything was _just _business between them but her tongue was thick in her mouth.

There was another fleeting emotion that she caught in his eyes, something it seemed he wasn't so used to suppressing, but it was fervently stifled nevertheless.

Tom excused himself almost immediately after, suddenly on board with her ability to make it to her quarters on her own.

And all she could do in his wake was stand there, stunned.

_Do you or don't you want me. . ?_

_. . . I did—I do._

. . . . .

Hermione's long venture up to her tower with Tom had done well for her body, his magic making it ache so much less. His fumbling over what she could only assume were his emotions, however, that made her head pound. It made her all the more grateful to finally reach her dorm room and find it still blissfully empty.

Empty, yet not _silent._

Standing at the edge of her bed, Hermione scowled down at the single worn book laying atop her spread. The cloth she'd wrapped it in was unfurled and lay stretched beneath its well-worked binding. The book—her Elder self's horcrux—sat oh so innocently in the center, the dark artefact and the myriad spells the Elder had woven into its pages seeping into the air with their hot and heavy press of heady aromas. Tantalizing vibrations came off the storybook and thrummed against her skin.

Its dark heart beat and it beat for _her._

"I hate you," Hermione hissed under her breath, knowing how petulant it sounded and not caring one bit.

It was apparent to her now that this small, unassuming keepsake had been fashioned to be a lifeline for her as well as a stick to beat her with.

It was her medicine and it was her poison.

Before meeting with Tom, Hermione had attempted to siphon just a touch of the energy housed in its pages but that ended _quite_ poorly. In fact, Hermione was still shaking away the fog that threatened to overcome her from the mere seconds of exposure she'd had. What relief she'd been able to come away with had lasted only until lunch and she did not look forward to attempting another go at it; her alternative, however, had proved disappointing.

It was during their late night healing session in The Room of Requirements when she'd finally noticed the oddly shaped ring on Tom's hand. She hadn't thought much of it at all until they'd gotten onto the touchy subjects of horcruxes in the library. The pieces all fit into place for her, then. Though she had heard Harry mention it during their great horcrux hunt, she'd never personally seen the thing. Knowing how tight a routine Tom kept, and between that new object and his strange behavior since the start of term, it was the only thing she could guess it could be.

Still scowling at the book, Hermione absently reached a hand to the chain around her neck and closed her fingers around the trinket she'd borrowed from the future world's most dangerous wizard of all time.

Hermione felt Tom's essence flow from the dark gem into her skin, felt edges of his presence creeping into her body, much in the way it had done when she'd worn his older self's locket in her original time. The comfort in such familiarity was unsettling, but grounding. She worried the smooth golden band between her thumb and forefinger, her grimace deepening as the dark magic tried to wriggle into her pores, yet fell woefully short. So inundated with the magic leeched from the Elder's book, as well as the constant bleeding of power from the walls in Ruthie's home, her body found the simpler magic in Tom's horcrux oh so very quaint in comparison.

She'd been hoping to substitute the ring for the book but found her "Plan B" severely lacking. And now, Hermione felt the gravity of the world increasing in her bones and muscles and her _everything_; time was gnashing at her heels.

"You knew," she muttered, speaking more to the ominous silence in her skull than the book she glared at. "You knew it'd come to this."

Slowly, her hand reached out, fingers trembling as they neared the edge of the cover. Her opposite hand curled more tightly around Tom's ring: a futile lifeline. She shut her eyes, knowing she needed to try again to draw from this magical anchor to sustain herself just a _little_ bit longer until she could create her own. The burgeoning fear that she would forget herself again, that she would lose herself in that wonderful dark haze of power and command-that fear pressed on her temples even as she strengthened her resolve.

Her hand shook the closer she came to the book, not having to see it to feel the waves of dark magic that were perfectly in tune with her every stuttered breath. With one last push and a held breath, Hermione's fingers connected with the cover and the world exploded around her.

_Nothing hurt._

_She could breathe._

_She felt __**wonderful.**_

Colors raced behind her eyelids.

The still quiet in the dorm somehow became sharper and crisper to her ears.

Most of all, she felt—_no—_she _**knew**_ that if she so desired, she could crush each and every individual pissant that crossed her path on nothing more than a whim.

A startled gasp of pleasure forced its way past her lips.

_She would show them all. _

_She could make them all pay. _

_She could do it all…_

…_with just a bit…_

…_more…_

…_power._

The fog of command began drifting into place, spanning from edge to cavernous edge of her densely packed mind. It itched, like a new, uncomfortable woolen jumper, but exuded warmth and comfort just the same.

A very small piece of her felt shackles being woven into the fiber of her being. Hermione knew the feeling, she _remembered_ how it had felt to be so bound to her Master and Mistress.

Visceral hatred bubbled to the surface as she recalled all that they'd done.

She remembered all that _**he**_ had done.

Hermione remembered—

"—_not yours—" _A voice, garbled yet somehow perfectly understandable, snapped at her.

The oddity of such a thing finally caused her to crack open her eyes.

What greeted her was a horrific ethereal face, gaunt, a withered husk at best. It stared, _pleading, _in her general direction even as that terrible face screamed and cried and backed away with a body that slowly materialized. The woman, clad in Ministry robes, was falling over herself to scramble away as her face withered and her skin split, droplets of her blood floating through the air as another's outline began to emerge.

'_Please,'_ the woman said. '_Please! I have a family.'_

'_I understand_,' another voice said. '_I did, too, once.'_

'_Please!'_

And an ethereal wand filtered into view attached to an arm, and a body, and a _woman_ that Hermione recognized intimately.

A jumble of words, another language—_a spell?_—floated in on the edges of the now slowly retreating fog.

That wand twisted and tilted, the spectral bushy head of hair tilting with it. Hermione couldn't see the Elder's face, but she could hear the smile in the hollow echo of her voice.

'_If it's any consolation, they won't miss you. I've already checked.'_

Screams filled her skull, shrieks of tortured pain nearly blowing out her eardrums before Hermione jerked back and away, her hand coming clear away from the book she'd still been connected to.

Swallowing huge gulps of air, Hermione stared wide-eyed at the book and the room around her.

The spectral images? Gone, nowhere to be seen.

The book? Still there but as innocent and unassuming as ever.

Hermione blinked several times as if to make sure she was seeing properly, but soon realized that she certainly was and that the fog had fled. It wasn't until she noted the sharp, persistent pain in her other hand that she looked down again, slowly uncurling her fingers from where they'd issued a death grip on Tom's ring. It was _also_ then that she felt the steady, persistent outpouring of Tom's dark essence flooding from the trinket in waves.

She stared at the object for what felt like ages, noting how her body's aches and pains and general sensations of 'wrongness' faded.

A sardonic smiled crept onto her face.

It appeared that, even in horcrux form, Tom Riddle did not like to be outdone.

. . . . .

Evening came and with the settling of students and faculty into their beds, Hermione, Tom, and the others made a stealthy escape to The Room.

When she arrived, she found The Room had conjured a large, formal looking meeting space with decadently styled tiles lining the floor from wall to wall. It was illuminated with dozens of sconces and large fireplaces, none of which lacked in the same decadence it had conjured elsewhere. Along the walls themselves hung grand tapestries representing all of Hogwarts' houses as well as some that she guessed represented Tom's minions, if for no other reason than she recognized the Lestrange family's crest, bright and bold on a far wall.

While The Room was amazing in and of itself, perhaps the more striking image was the line of Tom's minions waiting expectantly before a raised dais in the center of it all.

Since her arrival to the 40s, Hermione had found there were several things she greatly disliked about this decade in the wizarding world: the casual prejudice, the misogyny; they were all pitiful and distasteful. One thing she could find _no_ fault in, however, were the wizards' dress robes.

Hermione found that, apparently, the boys took Tom's direction to "wear your best" as a legitimate command as they had all arrived in tailored dress robes fit for the season.

Abraxas, Rosier, Nott, Mulciber—_Merlin_—even bloody Rophelius Lestrange looked impeccable in their crisply pressed trousers and their stark white shirts covered by perfectly fitted jackets made of various fine wools or silks. Hints of color caught her eye from bowties and ascots, to pocket squares that set everything off. Partial cloaks hugged their shoulders, looking like royal mantles more than anything.

The sight was a veritable smorgasbord of men.

A throat clearing at her side jostled Hermione out of her hot, flushed daze and she was met with an even more finely dressed Tom Riddle offering her his arm. Hermione let out a startled gasp despite herself at the sight of him. He was clad in finer wares than the decadent costume he'd attended the Masquerade in and she knew, in her heart of hearts, that those robes had to have come out of all his rich little puppets' collective pockets.

"You look better, Miss Callaghan." Tom's voice was even but his eyes scanned over her intently.

Hermione spared a moment to look down at herself, wrapped in a simple offering of a comfy blouse and skirt with leggings for warmth and some terrifyingly plain, practical, and uncomplimentary shoes. She swallowed down her mortification. Doing her best to appear entirely unbothered by the state of things, Hermione slipped her arm through Tom's. "I'm very refreshed, thank you." Out of the corner of her mouth, she grumbled at him, "I'd thought you were joking about the clothes."

Tom granted her a sideways look, the edge of his lips quirking up in a smirk. "I never joke." He ignored the glower that was turned in his direction as he led her to the dais where two finely decorated seats were placed. They passed his Minions who were standing stiffly, waiting for them to be seated. "Tonight is sure to be a festive night; I wanted them to be presentable."

"It's very presumptuous of you to assume that I'm going to do what you _think_ I'm going to do," Hermione huffed, still trying to gain a foothold after her wardrobe misjudgment. "I merely said I wanted to _speak_ with them."

His shoulders shrugged in a beautifully smooth gesture that made the cloak he wore flutter in the ponciest of ways. Tom took her hand from his elbow and guided her down into the overstuffed, velvety seat to the left of his own. "Just being prepared, my dear Persephone."

Hermione gave him a full on glare then. _The smug arse._

She adjusted herself uncomfortably atop the fluffy cushions, unable to help the fleeting thought that it reminded her of some of the Gryffindor common room seats but in much better repair. A part of her deeply missed the comfort of those well-worn, tattered, and torn red and gold chairs but that was neither here nor there. She wriggled again, trying not to draw attention but felt herself release an agitated huff.

"Shall we ask The Room to fetch you something more suitable for _your_ tastes, Miss Callaghan? Adjust the scenery for something you are more accustomed to, perhaps?"

Rophelius' acerbically sweet questions halted her wiggling and all eyes turned to him.

The boy met her stare without hesitation, a hard, furious look broadcasted loud and clear in her direction even though his body language and face held a much more relaxed and pleasant demeanor. She figured only the most practiced of the wizarding world's "Sacred 28" could truly muster such a complex confusion of body language on a whim.

The details of it were of no matter, however, because the ultimate message was clear: He was mocking her.

He was mocking her for _all_ to see and was seemingly unbothered by the consequences.

_That_ was a problem.

"Rophelius," Nott hissed a warning.

"Miss Callaghan is quite where she belongs, Mister Lestrange." Tom's words were polite but his tone was a cold lash of steel that cracked through the already uneasy air. His minions drew back at the sound.

All save for Rophelius, of course; his expression was steadily climbing towards what Hermione would have labeled as 'crazed.'

When Hermione turned to examine Tom's reaction, she was surprised to see just how much of the dark wizard of the future she saw in those harsh, angular lines of his face. She'd always surmised that it'd taken so much longer for Voldemort to become the great evil that had brought havoc and misery to her time but, looking at Tom then, she could see the edges of wickedness peeking out, clear as day. He sat so stiffly, barely containing his temper while his magical essence pattered against her skin like raindrops. She found it difficult to understand how so many had been blind to his potential for such terrible things. To his credit, it _was_ an alluring sort of wickedness.

_Everything about him is entrancing, _a voice came, unbidden, from the depths of her skull.

So apt was its statement, however, Hermione hardly tried to shake it off. He exuded such excellence and competency from within a sea of ineptitude that you were drawn to him if for nothing more than the promise of something different in the midst of stagnation.

Hermione understood one fundamental truth as her eyes scanned his profile: Tom Riddle had _always_ been a herald of change. Anyone who knew him at all and had survived his wrath outside of his circle had been aggressively trying _not_ to see the threat he posed to them all.

"Apologies, sir. Just trying to make the girl comfortable."

She was drawn from the inspection of her partner by the brash, flippant response.

_Insolence_, came that voice again.

Hermione turned in time to catch the whirl of blond hair as Abraxas' head whipped around so sharply she was sure he'd sprained his neck. His eyes were huge in outrage and astonishment over the informal address of both her _and_ their Dark Lord.

Half expecting an explosion from the seat to her right, she watched Rophelius' near manic glare picking apart Tom. Hermione waited another long second but when nothing happened, she finally turned to see why he'd not yet moved to skin the boy alive. To her surprise, Tom remained sitting, stock still with the only open sign of his anger being the way his fingers were gouging into the arms of his chair and the ticking muscles in his jaw and neck.

Tom's eyes flickered over to her a moment then forward once more. He breathed deeply and though strained, he managed a shark's smile. "Manners, Lestrange," he warned.

Both her eyebrows went up.

The fact that he hadn't tried to gut Lestrange as his first reaction was one thing, but that he was at all continuing to restrain himself boggled her mind.

Moving on, he said, "We shall begin our business now regarding the interrogations, then move on to _Persephone's_."

At the hint of eagerness with respects to _her_ portion of the meeting, she remembered the cursory look he'd given her prior to redoubling his efforts towards calm.

And then she recalled the contract.

He'd promised them to her.

A sobering thought struck her: _He does not want to spoil his gifts. . ._

If the words sounded as though they would have perfectly fit to the dark, hissing voice in her head, she did not notice.

_Tom Riddle strives not to ruin his Lady's toys. . ._

Hermione was incensed. If she were honest with herself, she wasn't _entirely_ sure she understood why.

All she knew was that one of Tom's peons, Rophelius Lestrange—_GODS, did this idiot look SO much like his future son_—was blatantly playing games, not just with her, but with Tom as well. It boiled her blood. She assured herself that it was simply due to the fact that she needed them all to fear Tom and nothing at _all_ to do with the deeply personal affront that someone so insidiously stupid would think he could even elevate to the same intellectual tier as the man at her side to be worthy of playing _games_ with him—with _them._

_Respect. He should be re-educated. . ._

Hermione's right hand moved of its own accord, her eyes never wavering from watching Lestrange's apparent pissing contest via eye contact. It came to rest over Tom's left, silencing him mid-sentence.

Tom's head turned, but she was very busy remembering the visual of Rodolphus' blood leaking from his mouth and nose and ears and imposing it over the young man in her sights.

"Yes, Persephone?"

"I think we should discuss my business first, Tom."

Rophelius' expression darkened for some reason she couldn't dissect and there was a very long pause before, with a hint of pleasure in his voice, Tom replied, "As my lady wishes."

Hermione felt a cool chill run through her in a not wholly unpleasant fashion; it distracted her from the slithering presence beginning to writhe more insistently in her head.

From her seat, Hermione summoned a thick, rolled scroll from her bag next to her chair. She unfurled the thing with one crisp snap of her wrist and bid it to hover next to her seat. All eyes were drawn to it and the enchanted shimmer of the parchment.

"Interrogations are a mundane thing. This, gentlemen, would be something of much more interest to you in the long term, I believe." Hermione shifted her stare to move between the men, stopping on Tarquin Nott. "This is a promise of partnership—" Her eyes moved and lingered on Abraxas, whose throat bobbed when she said the next. "—a relationship. Most importantly, it is a promise that I will assist in delivering you to greatness."

A smattering of confused throaty noises bubbled up from Tom's minions before they could stifle most of them. They were all obviously befuddled; Lestrange appeared angrier with every word.

Nott inclined his head, bidding her notice and Hermione nodded him clearance for his question. "Forgive me for asking so brusquely, my lady, but how do you propose to accomplish such a claim?"

Hermione pursed her lips, having debated what and when to tell Tom's minions about herself ever since she set out to convince the Dark Lord himself to become her partner in her plight.

_They will know soon enough anyway. . ._

"I propose it…because I know that it has been done." At Nott's furrowed brow, she continued. "It has been done and I have _seen_ it done." Nervous at one of the few truths she'd told since being sent back that waited on her tongue, Hermione licked her lips and sat straighter in her chair. "Gentlemen, I bring you the knowledge from the future, a time where our Dark Lord has won and we reign over all else. I bring it and I offer it to you for the very simple price of your fealty."

As disciplined as the majority of them were, their surprised murmurs and questions erupted in a dull cacophony of noise all at once.

Abraxas appeared stunned, although he looked at Hermione as though certain bits and pieces of things were slowly tumbling into place.

Nott's attention flitted between the two individuals sat upon the dais, Rosier looked fearful at the strange enlightenment, and Lestrange managed to continue looking more and more perturbed as the questions traveled between them all. It wasn't until Mulciber stepped forward and spoke over them all that any semblance of order returned.

"You…you are from the _future_?"

Hermione's mouth had thinned to a stern line. The edge of it twitched at hearing the question out loud. It sounded barmy. "Yes."

"And…" Mulciber's brain was rapidly working to accept the idea and it showed on his face. "…you are from _our_ future?"

She inhaled, scrubbing borrowed memories that were becoming clearer in the seconds she searched for them. The Lestranges and Malfoys she knew were in that bleak world. The rest of them, however…she searched and searched and—

_**Yes.**_

"_Yes,"_ the answer came out before she realized it.

There was another obvious struggle happening in his expression.

Lestrange spoke out, "Bollocks!" He angrily approached the dais. "If you were from a future that our Dark Lord governed, _you_ would have been strung up long before you could have made it _here!"_

"_ROPHELIUS!"_

He ignored his second chastising from Abraxas and moved closer. Tom rose from his seat, wand drawn and temper apparently_ lost._ Hermione rose with him and stilled him with a firm grip on his opposite forearm, earning her a very nasty warning look from the young Dark Lord in question.

Lestrange was even more incited when she touched his leader, even after his earlier flippancy. "You may be from a future where you think your kind deserves to breathe our same air, but it certainly is no future of _**mine!**_"

_**Arrogant!**_

Hermione felt Tom's anger brimming, her hand tightened on his arm, halting him further even as a familiar fog began to creep in. "Are you calling me a _liar_, Rophelius?"

"Don't you _dare_ use my name—"

_**Impudent!**_

The whispers in her mind grew louder as the seconds passed.

"Lestrange, shut your gob!" Nott sported a dark scowl as he moved to physically position himself between the taller man and Hermione. "Shut it now, or I'll shut it for you." Tarquin Nott was not going down with _that _ship.

The contract fluttered where it still hovered and a small pinpoint of light drew the shimmer from the parchment, growing with intensity until it began to move. Slowly, fluidly, a smooth swirling script began to appear beneath the terms.

"My lady, please, he does not speak for us." Abraxas stood next to Nott, staring back at a red-faced Rophelius with his own glare. "You _will_ watch how you address her. If our Dark Lord welcomes her at his side, you will abide or you can find yourself 'removed' from this circle."

Another line of script started its scribbling on the scroll shortly before the last ended.

Lestrange grew outraged, looking between his two mates. "You truly believe this gobshite?" His harsh gesture in Hermione's direction was unclear as to whether he meant her story or her or both. "You both are willing to compromise all we've worked for towards our perfect society because of the lies on this witch's tongue?"

That fog had begun to bleed into the edges of her vision.

Rosier weakly chimed in, nervous eyes darting between a barely restrained Tom Riddle and Rophelius Lestrange, frothing with zealous outrage. "Nobody would lie to Tom like that, Roph! Tom doesn't fall for lies! He's smarter and cleverer than that!"

A dim line appeared on the page.

Rophelius sneered, whirling on the spindly, lean member of their crew. "Once, that was the case."

He turned that sneer back on Hermione and, for a fleeting moment, with the way his eyes scanned over her, she felt as if it was Rodolphus once more, alive and well and leering at everything that he wanted to make his.

"But even the flesh of our lord can be weak. He hasn't ascended yet and is it or is it not our duty to protect him from filth like _her?_"

Sounds of outrage sprung from Nott and Abraxas both.

"You have seconds before I skin you where you stand, Lestrange." Tom's warning was generous and if not for Hermione's hand that migrated to cover his wand hand, the boy would surely have been in splatters around The Room by then.

His words fell on deaf ears however, and Rophelius made a furious and desperate plea. "My lord, _please_, you can't see, but _we_ can! Strike me down if you must, but she _**poisons**_ you with promises of our greatest desires! She will take them all from you in the end if you allow it, just as her and her kind have done before with our magic! She will _ruin_ your greatness!"

The firelight in The Room dimmed and flickered.

"My _kind_?" It was a hiss from between her teeth. Her feet were pulling her towards the edge of the dais, her hand coming free from Tom's to gravitate towards her own wand.

Rophelius growled at her and her movement. "_Thieves! _ You may have come from a future, but you have not come for _us_."

After much deliberation, Mulciber finally moved forward to join the others.

A new line appeared on the contract.

Reaching out for his friend, Mulciber cautioned, "Roph, mate, you should think about this. Use your bloody head—"

He snatched his arm away. "I bloody well _have!_ Or at least I'm the only one that's been thinking with the proper one!" Lestrange examined Hermione again with _that_ look, sneering once more.

_**Insolence. . .**_

The flames in the sconces all started to flicker wildly as though some great breeze came rushing through.

"Whether or not she came from our future, to partner with the likes of _her_ would go against everything that we stand for!" He cast a scrutinizing gaze out over the others, lingering for an especially long moment on Tom.

Hermione could've sworn she heard every stretch of muscle in Tom's chest and back and arms go taut and, if that wasn't enough to know how much he wanted to tear the boy apart, she felt the pounding of his magic against her skin. She felt it against her chest where his ring hung. She felt it in her very veins.

That he still held his position, held his tongue, because of her—_for her_—it made Hermione's chest ache with too many things at once.

He'd ripped apart Avery with his bare hands for her…

He'd given her his pawns as a gift…

He continued to meter his fury so she could have the satisfaction of punishing them herself in the face of such insolence—

_**Insolence. . .**_

That hissed whisper halted her line of thought.

Rophelius' dark glare swung back to look Hermione in the eyes once more. Worked to his absolute limit, veins bulging from his neck and forehead in his fury and indignation at the perceived betrayal, Rophelius Lestrange grit out from between his bared teeth with such utter disgust and loathing. "This lot can fawn and yammer about your great plans, but _I_ will _**never **_swear fealty to a filthy—"

_**Insolence. . .**_

The Room quivered.

"—lying—"

_**. . .shall not. . .**_

Sconces rattled where they were bolted into the bricks surrounding them all, disrupting their line and drawing the other boys' attentions to the way The Room had begun to tremble.

"—Mudblood _whore_ like you!"

The pressure of dark, _dark_ magic was flooding the air and it snapped both Abraxas and Tom's heads in the direction of the petite witch who was padding towards the edge of the dais.

_**. . .be tolerated.**_

The fog rolled in with violence and thunder and _**vengeance.**_

Hermione's hand lashed out, a wave of force scattering her human wall in order to take hold of Rophelius' jaw at the hinge with an inhuman, vicelike grip. Black coils of magic swept into her eyes, deepening the chocolate color to pools of obsidian in a flash of a second.

Darkness consumed her.

"_You. . .insolent. . .__**cur!**__"_

The Room's orange firelight blinked out of existence and plunged them into a darkness so heavy and thick that it felt as though the very life was strangled from the air.

A deafening _**CRACK**_ and _**scream **_sounded in the pitch darkness. When sight was restored, it was by way of a sudden flood of blue-white firelight igniting furiously flickering flames from all the torches and fireplaces surrounding them.

Tom's wand was up, raised and seeking the threat. All he found, however, were his followers sprawled around the dais in various states of puzzlement and Hermione's small form standing tall several paces away with Rophelius Lestrange's large form on his knees before her. Lestrange's body was bent, the arch of his back harsh, and Tom could hear him choking under her grip. The young man wavered and scrabbled at her grip with both of his hands and his eyes were rolling in their sockets trying to focus beyond the degree of pain her tiny hand was inflicting.

Tom's arm drooped and he stared in blatant awe at the picture she made. Hermione was bathed in the ethereal glow of her bluebell flames with his most belligerent minion bent in subjugation before her, and the powerful waves of magic were washing off her body like a siren's call from the ocean.

_Beautiful._

His other minions were collecting themselves, groaning and pushing to their hands and knees to come to terms with what had so violently batted them aside.

Tom cared nothing for them, his eyes only for one.

Hermione snarled and spoke, an unearthly echo latching on to each of her words.

"_It's always about __**blood**__ with you lot, isn't it?" _ She tightened her grip. There was another loud crack and Rophelius shrieked, eyes shut and watering. _"How yours is __**pure**__. How its magic is __**stronger**__. How it is so very much __**better**__ than mine. . ."_

_**Teach him.**_

Hermione drew him in closer and the wound that Tom had healed, the wound atop the back of the rune-scarred skin of the hand that held his face, began to unknit. Her blood wept from small tears that reformed the old, ancient rune of power.

_**Show him.**_

"_What __**is**__ it about this blood. . ."_Her nails dug so hard into his face where she held him that they pierced his skin and his own blood beaded on her fingernails. _"What __**is**__ so very special?"_ She fingered her wand in her opposite hand, raising it up and to the side, like some sort of morbid fishing pole before she roughly turned Rophelius' head with another of his pained cries.

_**Show him. . .you know the spell.**_

"_Allow me a taste, will you?"_

Hermione began to incant a spell none of them knew, only Tom vaguely recognized what language it might have been, though not the words themselves.

Rophelius' blood floated up between them in shaking, quivering droplets, hovering as if gravity were non-existent for a moment before they disintegrated and, in their place, small sparks of energy popped and flared to life. The faint light crackled and arced over her skin painlessly, growing brighter as the seconds passed. The light worked its way into her open wound and went to work knitting it shut again in the very same way Tom's healing spells had done before.

Rophelius started to shake uncontrollably as his life and his magic were being forcefully ripped from his body like a slow peeling of skin from meat. In the depths of his pain, the thought that this sensation _must_ be what it felt like to have someone trying to pull his entire skeleton out through his mouth crossed his mind.

The screams that erupted from Lestrange were the likes of which none of Tom's minions, or Tom himself, had ever heard before.

Hermione smiled but it was more teeth than kindness as the blue-white light highlighted her face, casting the hollows of her eyes and cheeks in a monstrous a shadow. _"Forgive me, my dear Lestrange. . .I was wrong all this time. It is __**quite**__ wonderful after all."_ And her wrist twisted, drawing greater, more terrified screams from the young man. _"I shall savor the taste of such a magical bloodline so decadent as yours."_

The sarcasm dripping from each syllable might have been more evident to him if he weren't so thoroughly engaged in his shrieking.

Overtop Rophelius' tortured form, Hermione caught Tom's eyes, so hungry and entranced as though he were ready to ravage her right there, audience or no. It was a look that brought a flush of heat to her face and neck, her focus faltering for just the slightest of moments.

Within that brief reprieve of torture, came a gurgled, babbled plea begging for mercy.

"_**PLEASE!"**_

Hermione's attention flicked back down to the pile of twitching, bleeding piss and shite that was Rophelius Lestrange.

His hands came out in a shaking mess, barely able to grip at her tight-covered calves without spasming. Rophelius' body spilled over her plain, practical shoes, groveling shamelessly with a terror she'd never witnessed from the wretch so embedded into his words. "Please! F-ff-forgive me! Don't—j-j-just don't take my magic! _**Please!**_"

The sweet taste of his frantic begging—a complete reversal from only minutes before—hit her tongue and was the most delicious flavor of irony she'd ever tasted.

Hermione allowed him to continue for several seconds more before she finally released her spell.

Lestrange fell in a sniveling, sobbing heap, hysterically babbling at her toes.

She watched him there, curled in on himself, his body convulsing uncontrollably with the aftershocks of the spell as his magic moved to hastily start repairing itself and the energy she'd bled from his body.

_**Pathetic**_**.**

That dark voice slithered around insistently in her head. It goaded her, bidding her to do it again, just to hear the predecessor of her old master beg his "filthy Mudblood whore" for mercy_._

It laughed at the thought.

Hermione's wand was moving again, a smirk on her lips when another movement caught her attention. She looked up to see the parchment for her new Order floating towards her. A second glance fell to Tom who caught her stare immediately, his wand up and slightly tilted in her direction.

That voice in her skull ceased its laughter and it was moving again, this time like it was pressing against the backs of her eyes to get a better 'look.'

Hermione stared intently at Tom as though she'd never seen him before, the dark swirls of magic twisting and churning more violently than before in her dark irises.

Her mouth dried out and her arm moved of its own volition. Fluidly, she coaxed the parchment from his control to hers with a gentle swirl of her wand. Reluctantly, Hermione tore her attention from Tom to focus on the contract, scanning quickly down the length of script to settle on the lightly glowing, gently humming bottom portion of it where several lines had appeared since their evening began.

Hermione smiled a sly smile when she read over the names that had etched themselves into the parchment by way of their owners' actions.

Almost tenderly, Hermione squatted down to what would've been eye level with Rophelius if he hadn't been so crumpled at her toes. Summoning the scroll down to where he could see, it fluttered neatly to rest on the stone floor next to Lestrange's shivering, still somewhat bleeding form. Reaching out, Hermione traced her fingertips along his closest exposed cheek to push some of his matted hair from his face. Rophelius winced away from the touch, his disgust absent as pure, unabashed fear took up in its place.

It beckoned a smile to her face and she swore she could feel Tom's energy butting up more feverishly against hers in the confines of The Room.

Hermione whispered, her voice still holding the presence that somehow didn't _fit_ the girl speaking. It resembled an elegant purr and venomous hiss all intertwined with how the words dripped from her lips. _"Your magic will aid me at your behest, Mister Lestrange. . .or at __**mine**__."_ She drew his attention to the names of his mates, all neatly stacked for his perusal. _"Make your choice."_

Hermione stretched back up to her full height, a darker, more regal presence emanating from her in waves as she watched him turn those pleading eyes on her. They were filled with open terror at the thought—at the few _seconds_ of experience—of being anything _but the_ fully magical being he was. She watched this proud, idiot of a man, watching her, being more terrified at the idea of being robbed of his magic than of his death.

Rophelius sobbed one more weak, heart juddering sob and said, "Please…my lady. _**Anything.**_"

The scroll fizzled to life, the light from before igniting the page, moving frantically to scrawl one final line onto the scroll of her knights. As soon as the light ceased its movement, fire ignited Rophelius' name and all those before it. As quickly as it started, it was snuffed out, leaving magically branded signatures and titles in their places.

The soft stream of smoke dissipated and the final name gleamed more vibrantly than the rest.

_Rophelius Lestrange_

_The Last Knight of Walpurgis_


End file.
